I like to show the movie Barbarians at the Gate in finance class because it is such a strong illustration of corporation finance: decisions about introducing a new product (the ill-fated Premier cigarette) and reinvesting in the bakery business; dealing with sunk costs (Premier); valuing cash flows; agency problems with management and shareholders; decisions about capital structure; and what happens… [Read More]
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Tag: corporation finance
Barbarians at the Gate, workers, and wages
I’ve started showing Barbarians at the Gate in my corporation finance classes because it is a great story that ties together so many items on the syllabus: investment decisions in existing businesses, sunk costs (the Premier cigarette), the differences between cash flow and accounting income, and the use of leverage. Plus, James Garner is so… [Read More]
Hot issues in finance, fall semester 2013
At the start of every semester, I ask my students to list some of the top issues in finance. We’ll review the list at the end of the semester to see if the course gave them any insight. Here’s what students in the two sections of the course came up with: AM Section Unionization and… [Read More]
Ten Badly Explained Topics in Finance Textbooks
Pablo Fernandez is a professor at the business school at the Universitad de Navarra, a Spanish institution. One of his area of research is how finance is taught. The idea is that students pick up concepts in class that then carry over to how they interpret finance on the job. For example, he conducts a… [Read More]