Corporate Finance

This course helps understand, thanks to theoretical models, how firms structure the way they finance their development, as well as their relationships with diverse stakeholders: shareholders, banks, corporate ventures, and other lenders, etc.

The course focuses on the complex web of incentives created by financial claims and the impact it has on entrepreneurship and access to credit and financing, as well as on the profitability of firms.

It draws on the literature of industrial organization and contracts theory, and will mostly use theoretical models.

We will in particular study (time permitting)

-          - The role of lenders in screening projects and monitoring performance,

-          - The choice between equity and debt,

-          - The impact of the capital structure on competition, market power and profitability,

-          - The impact of legal rules, concerning for instance debt priority,