NABET, NABET 2018 Conference

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Onward and Upward: A Swedish Corporate Finance Course
Timothy L. Wilson, Lars Lindbergh

Last modified: 2019-01-29

Abstract


Business education in Sweden has been characterized as the meeting of Mercury, the god of merchants, with Minerva, the patron of science.  The understanding of corporate financing typifies that association, i.e., commerce is depicted in accepted, systematic formulations.  The course that is described herein is a final year finance course at Umeå University in Sweden – Advanced Corporate Finance.   The primary purpose of this course is to provide an integrated overview of the most important concepts in Corporate Finance in theory, practice and in some cases method.  The course is designed to develop students’ ability to

  • assess the impact of information asymmetry on corporate financial policy decisions,
  • explain the theoretical basis and applicable strategies applied in corporate control,
  • compare and contrast leverage strategies in ideal versus real capital markets and ably explain the impact of alternative taxation systems on the use of debt,
  • argue for optimal levels of corporate debt and be able to value an offering under different financing strategies, and
  • formulate and logically defend a position in regard to current issues, which confront corporations today

Highlighted and discussed are measures such as how business valuation can affect various stakeholders and potential implications are related to ethics and sustainability.  A group exercise and case study analysis, used in the course, are covered in the paper.  The paper should be of interest to educators and administrators because of Michael Porter’s reflection that one of the competitive advantages of Sweden is the universally high educational level of its population.


Keywords


Finance, Education, Corporation, Sweden