UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA

BUSINESS PROGRAM

 

COMM 429

Finance: Advanced Topics

(Human Mind and Behavioral Finance)

Fall 2013

 

Professor:           Jing Chen                  Telephone:                                             960-6480

Office:               10-4534, T&L                                 Class Time:                   T 8:30-11:20

Office Hours:     T 1:00 – 3:00                                  Class Location:    10-4520

                         (or by appoint.)                                Email:                 chenj@unbc.ca

Web site             http://web.unbc.ca/~chenj/teaching

 

COURSE OBJECTIVES

 

We will explore the rapidly evolving field of Behavioral Finance and its great impact to our understanding of human mind. The field of finance, with its unparallel abundance of accurate data, provides the unique opportunity to test many established and new hypotheses about human mind. We will introduce a new theory of mind that provides a unified understanding of many psychological patterns. This theory is especially helpful in providing a simple and coherent understanding of many stock return patterns and investor behaviors. This course is an interdisciplinary exploration of human behavior, information theory and financial investment.

 

 

Teaching Materials

 

Handouts will be distributed in classes

 

COURSE EVALUATION

 

Class Participation                              10%

Mid-term                                            20%

Final Exam                                         30%

Project                                               40%

              Total                                               100%

 

Each group of three persons will present a report on human mind or behavioural finance. Each presentation is forty minutes. Each group can pick your presentation time at the beginning of the term.  

The examinations will cover all contents discussed in the course, including contents from student presentations. The style of the questions in the exams will be similar to those in the homework and the review.

Class participation will be mainly based upon the number of times you come up to present your homework solutions.  

 

 

 

Tentative course outline:

 

Week

Dates

Topic

Notes

1

  

2

Sept 10

Introduction

 

Exponential and logarithmic functions

 

3

Sept 17

Theory of information

Homework  Solution

4

Sept 24

Theory of learning

   Homework  Solution

5

Oct 1

Theory of judgment

   Homework   Solution

6

Oct 8

7

Oct 15

 Midterm

 

9

Oct 22

 Theory of investment

      Homework   Solution

10

Oct 29

 

11

Nov 5

Theory of human psychology

Homework   Solution

12

Nov 12

Short term patterns in financial markets

 

13

Nov 19

Presentations

 

14

Nov 26

Review

 

 

TBA

Final exam

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please note that the above course outline is tentative. Although the major topic areas will be covered, the detail and extent of coverage will depend on the pace at which the class progresses.