Courses
Courses and workshops organized within the NFN are open to finance PhD students and faculty from all Nordic universities or business schools irrespective of whether their home institution is a member of the NFN.
NFN Travel Grant
The NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of the country where a given course takes place. To apply for the Travel Grant, please use the form below and send it to the NFN office at nfn (@) aalto.fi. Remember to ask your supervisor to also send a short recommendation email. Please send the application well in advance to make sure that the NFN office has time to process your application and you have a chance to ensure the cheapest tickets available.
Past Courses
You can consult a list of past courses here
Forthcoming Courses
| Empirical Asset Pricing | |
|---|---|
| Organizer | Swedish House of Finance, Stockholm School of Economics |
| Instructor | Magnus Dahlquist (Stockholm School of Economics) |
| Dates | October 28 – December 10, 2024 |
| Place | Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm, Sweden |
| Information | This course is an introduction to empirical research in asset pricing. We begin with a review of econometric methods often used in asset pricing research. We then cover return predictability in the time series and the cross section. We also cover evaluations of various asset pricing models. The goal is to familiarize you with essential econometric methods, important empirical facts, and areas of current research interest. The emphasis is on the pricing of equities, but we also deal with bonds and currencies. More information on the course website. |
| Applications | Please register in advance by sending an email to course administrator Jenny Wahlberg Andersson at jenny.wahlberg.andersson (@) hhs.se. |
| Household Finance | |
|---|---|
| Organizer | Swedish House of Finance, Stockholm School of Economics |
| Instructor | Paolo Sodini (Stockholm School of Economics) |
| Dates | Fall 2024, second period |
| Place | Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm, Sweden |
| Information | The course is about the emerginh field of household finance. Normative household finance studies how households should use financial markets to reach their goals. Positive household finance studies how households do actually use financial markets to reach their goals. More information on the course website. |
| Applications | Please register in advance by sending an email to course administrator Jenny Wahlberg Andersson at jenny.wahlberg.andersson (@) hhs.se. |
| Big Data Asset Pricing | |
|---|---|
| Organizer | Copenhagen Business School |
| Instructor | Lasse Heje Pedersen & Christian Stolborg (Copenhagen Business School) |
| Dates | January 9 – February 20, 2025 |
| Place | Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark / Hybrid |
| Information | The aim of the class is to introduce PhD students in finance and related fields to empirical asset pricing research methods using big data. The course provides students with empirical asset pricing tools to use big data to analyze modern topics in financial economics. The course starts with a quick overview of asset pricing, empirical asset pricing, and how to work with big financial data. The course then covers the factor zoo, multiple testing adjustments, replication, machine learning in asset pricing, and asset pricing with frictions. In addition to the theoretical discussion, the students will gain access to a large data set of global equity returns and use this data to solve several mandatory exercises, which constitute an essential part of the course. More information on the course website |
| Applications | Registration deadline is November 28, 2024. Link to registration can be found on the course website. Course fee is waived for NFN students. |
| Travel Grant | NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of Denmark. |
| Empirical Finance: Identification Strategies in Corporate FInance | |
|---|---|
| Organizer | Copenhagen Business School |
| Instructor | Kasper Meisner Nielsen (Copenhagen Business School) |
| Dates | March 26-27, 2025 |
| Place | Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark |
| Information | The aim of the class is to introduce PhD students in finance and related fields to identification strategies in corporate finance. The course is designed to provide an introduction to some of the empirical methods used to identify causal effects in corporate finance. We will examine how to estimate causal effects in the presence of potentially unobserved confounding factors and how to make proper statistical inference about empirical estimates. The goal of the course is to provide PhD students with a methodological framework that will enhance their ability to design sound identification strategies in the area of corporate finance. More information on the course website |
| Applications | Registration deadline is February 10, 2025. Link to registration can be found on the course website. Course fee is waived for NFN students. |
| Travel Grant | NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of Denmark. See instructions at the top of the page. |
| Corporate Risk Management | |
|---|---|
| Organizer | Graduate School of Finance / Aalto University |
| Instructor | Kristine Hankins (University of Kentucky) |
| Dates | May 7-9, 2025 |
| Place | Aalto University School of Business, Espoo, Finland |
| Information | Understanding risk and uncertainty is central to research in finance. As the nature of corporate risk evolves, so does our understanding of how firms respond to these challenges. This course focuses on current topics in corporate risk and risk management, beginning with a brief overview of classic theory. We then will dive into the rapidly advancing literature on measuring risk and explore opportunities for generating new measures. Next, we’ll examine how firms manage risk, discussing both operational and financial hedging strategies. Throughout, the course will emphasize the use of innovative datasets to provide fresh insights into classic corporate finance questions and foster the development of new research ideas. More information on the course page |
| Applications | Please see course website for instructions. The deadline for applications is April 21, 2025. |
| Travel Grant | NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of Finland. See instructions at the top of the page. |
| Empirical Finance: Fixed Income | |
|---|---|
| Organizer | Copenhagen Business School |
| Instructor | Peter Feldhütter (Copenhagen Business School) |
| Dates | May 7 & 21, 2025 |
| Place | Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark |
| Information | This course is a course on fixed income at the PhD level. The course attempts to lay the groundwork for students who will later do actual empirical research work in fixed income. It is therefore a hands on course where the students will have to perform analysis on actual data, and where the examples are chosen to illustrate the typical questions asked in finance research. The focus is on classic estimation methods, but the course will also, where relevant, outline recent developments. More information on the course website |
| Applications | Registration deadline is April 11, 2025. Link to registration can be found on the course website. Course fee is waived for NFN students. |
| Travel Grant | NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of Denmark. See instructions at the top of the page. |
| Empirical Corporate Finance | |
|---|---|
| Organizer | Graduate School of Finance / Aalto University |
| Instructor | Renée Adams (Saïd Business School, University of Oxford) |
| Dates | May 13-17, 2025 |
| Place | Aalto University School of Business, Espoo, Finland |
| Information | This course offers a doctoral level introduction to Empirical Corporate Finance and aims to prepare doctoral students to do research on their own in this field. More information on the course website |
| Applications | Please see course website for instructions. The deadline for applications is April 27, 2025. |
| Travel Grant | NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of Finland. See instructions at the top of the page. |
| Advances in Asset Pricing Theory | |
|---|---|
| Organizer | BI Norwegian Business School |
| Instructor | Paul Ehling & Christian Heyerdahl-Larsen (BI Norwegian Business School) |
| Dates | May 19-23, 2025 |
| Place | Centre for Advanced Study, Oslo, Norway |
| Information | The focus of the course is on asset pricing with heterogeneous investors in overlapping generations. |
| Applications | More information will be announced later. |
| Travel Grant | NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of Norway. See instructions at the top of the page. |
| Modelling Risky Financial Institutions | |
|---|---|
| Organizer | University of Jyväskylä (in collaboration with the Graduate School of Finance) |
| Instructor | David Martinez-Miera (University Carlos III de Madrid) |
| Dates | June 9-13, 2025 |
| Place | University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland |
| Information | The main objective of this course is to understand the key mechanisms underlying the risk-taking behavior of banks and their consequences for the real economy. The course present different setups that allow the participant to better understand: 1. The relevance of imperfect information in the credit market 2. The role of financial institutions in the economy 3. Banks’ risk strategies and their impact on the overall allocation of capital in the economy 4. The role of banks and other agents in determining the inherent instability of the economy 5. The logic and possible unintended consequences underlying banking regulation |
| Applications | TBA |
| Travel Grant | NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of Finland. See instructions at the top of the page. |
| Empirical Banking | |
|---|---|
| Organizer | Graduate School of Finance / Aalto University |
| Instructor | Steven Ongena (University of Zurich) |
| Dates | September 15-17, 2025 |
| Place | Aalto University School of Business, Espoo, Finland |
| Information | More information will be updated on the course website later. |
| Applications | Application instructions can be found on the course website in due course. |
| Travel Grant | NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of Finland. See instructions at the top of the page. |