ECTS: 90
Duration: 18 months
Start: October
This Program will NOT be open for 2020/2021
Master Program overview
The MSc in Financial Economics is fully taught in English and is accredited by the Portuguese Agency for Assessment and Accreditation of Higher Education. Such accreditation is based on the recognition of the excellence of the program’s Faculty (scientific research and teaching practices), as well as on the exceptional quality of School’s facilities and equipment.
This master degree caters to both national and international demand and is intended to fulfill the societies' growing needs of highly qualified resources in finance, by offering specialized training in this field. In particular, this three semester program (total of 90 ECTS) provides students with rigorous training in economics, econometrics and finance, all of which are key basis for those wishing to start his/her career in investment and commercial banks, central banks, consulting firms and policy oriented organizations. In addition, the Master provides students with an appropriate background to continue studying at the PhD level, namely in our program in Management and Economic Sciences.
Students of this Master Program also have an opportunity to attend courses of the Master in Finance and Banking at the University Pablo Olavide (Seville) during the Spring term.
Master Goals and Learning Objectives
After graduating students should be able to:
· Critically interpret the current research in Financial Economics and evaluate its empirical relevance;
· Understand the role and duties of financial institutions;
· Understand the way financial markets work and identify potential market failures that require the state's intervention and regulation;
· Perform empirical research in financial economics, using appropriate quantitative methods;
· Acquire a deep knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of theoretical and applied research methods;
· Perform mathematical and economic analysis to solve decision problems that are faced by public entities and other entities connected to the finance field.
Curriculum Overview
In the first year of the Master you will be asked to complete both required and elective courses. Classes start in October and will finish in June. After the completion of the 1st year you will have to complete the Masters Final Work (dissertation/project work/internship). Below we provide a short overview of the courses that are avaliable for you. More detailed description of each course is given in subsection "Course Structure" in the menu above.
Required courses
Financial Economics: 1. Introduction; 2. Financial system; 3. Finance in a perfect capital market; 4. Capital markets and risk; 5. Asset pricing and risk; 6. Market imperfections and limits to arbitrage.
Microeconomic Analysis: 1. Consumer theory; 2. Uncertainty; 3. Theory of the firm; 4. Markets; 5. Game theory.
Macroeconomic Analysis: 1. Macroeconomic equilibrium in the short term; 2. International capital flows and macroeconomic equilibrium; 3. Assets markets; 4. Determination of exchange rate and assets markets.
Applied Econometrics: 1. Statistical methods: descriptive statistics and statistical tests; 2. Regression analysis; 3. Models with limited dependent variable; 4: Univariate time series; 5. Volatility modelling.
Seminar I: This course is organized in thematic components.
Seminar II: This course is organized in thematic components.
Research Methdologies: 1. Scientific research: introductory elements; 2. Research projects: methodological characteristics; 3. Masters final work: concept, options and key elements; 4. Research topics in financial economics.
Electives
Derivatives: 1. Introduction to derivatives; 2. Forwards contracts; 3. Futures; 4. Swaps; 5. Options; 6. Derivatives and financial innovation.
Corporate Finance: 1. Introduction; 2. Investment analysis; 3. The financing decision; 4. The dividend decision.
Financial Econometrics : 1. Regression models of financial data; 2. Properties of financial data; 3. Time series modeling and forecasting; 4. Modeling volatility and correlation; 5. Panel data models.
Public Finance: Part I - Fiscal policy and its effects on savings, investment and financial applications; 1. Taxes and their economic incidence; 2. Taxes on capital; 3. Taxes on capital and investment decisions, distribution of dividends and savings. Part II - The social security and capital market: 4. Economic models of financing social security; 5. International comparisons; 6. Pension funds as a financial asset.
Monetary Economics: Part I - The Money and the Economy: 1. The demand for money, types of money and models of overlapping generations; 2. Money and interest rates; 3. Inflation. Seignoriage; 4. International Monetary Systems and EMU; 5. Money and the product in the economy. Part II - Banking and Financial Markets: 6. Money and capital; 7. Liquidity and financial intermediation; 8. The Central Bank and the money supply; 9. Fluctuations in the money stock; 10. The bank risk; 11. The bank failure; 12. The asymmetric information problem.
Faculty
Visiting Professors
Abhay Abhyankar is a PhD holder in Financial Economics and a MA holder in Finance and Physics. He joined the University of Exeter Business School, where he is a Full Professor, from the University of Edinburgh where he was Balllie Gifford Chair of Financial Markets. Abhay has previously worked at the Universities of Durham, Warwick and Stirling. He has also held visiting positions at the IDEA, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona. Prior to joining academia he was a member of the Indian Administrative Service. He is also currently on the Board of Directors of Masters Pharma (India) - a new start up. He was on the Board of Roche Scientific Products (India) for the last five years and has also served as a Dean in the International Office at the University of Edinburgh. He is the Scientific Coordinator of the Master in Financial Economics.
Professor of Finance at the Manchester Business School, was educated at Amherst (B.A.), Oxford (M.A.), and Harvard Business School (D.B.A.). He has taught derivatives and real options semester courses for many years at MBS, in Portugal and elsewhere. His books (sometimes co-edited) on real options are: The Blackwell Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Finance, Blackwell Publishers (1997), Real Options: Evaluating Corporate Investment Opportunities in a Dynamic World, Financial Times Prentice Hall (2001), Real R&D Options, Butterworth-Heinemann (2003) and A Review of the Practical Uses of Real Property Options, RICS (2005). Recent articles on options and real options are in European Financial Management, European Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Futures Markets, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Omega, Real Estate Economics and other journals. He set a new age-group record for the Ironman Triathlon World Championship in 2010.
Doctor in Business Administration and Management from the University of Seville (2004) and senior lecturer in Finance at the Department of Financial Economics and Accounting from the University Pablo de Olavide (Seville, Spain) since 1998.
Author of numerous articles on financial topics, he is specialized in risk management. He leads, as main research, the emerging project "New Methodological Tools for Risk Measurement". He received the second prize in the "Awards for Research and Study" (2013) of the Financial Studies Foundation and the International Award on Risk Management (2008), to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Santander Bank. He has also completed several international research stays at the University of Groningen (Netherlands), Universidade do Algarve (Faro, Portugal), Westminster University (UK), Stockholm School of Business (Sweden), Options & Futures Institute (Madrid) among others. He currently holds the academic position as Vice-Chancellor for Strategy, Employability and Entrepreneurship.
Dr. Rajesh Tharyan is a Senior Lecturer in Finance at the University of Exeter Business School and the Departmental Director of Post Graduate Research (Finance). Dr. Tharyan has a PhD from the University of Exeter and an MSc from the London School of Economics. His research interests span Asset Pricing and Corporate Finance/Governance areas. His current research in the Asset Pricing area focuses on macro-based asset pricing models, cost of capital, stock market anomalies and in the Corporate Finance/Governance area on the effects of top management team characteristics on outcomes of cross border M&As and on insider trading.
Professors of the University of the Algarve
Ana Paula is a PhD holder in Economics and a MA holder in Economic and Management Sciences. She is an Assistant Professor, and a member of the Research Centre on Spatial and Organizational Dynamics. She has researched in political and electoral cycles in government spending, fiscal federalism applied to the Portuguese municipalities and spatial effects. She has been the national delegate in the Management Committee in the European project COST: "Cities regrowing smaller - fostering knowledge on regeneration strategies in shrinking cities across Europe".
António Matias is a PhD holder in Economics and a MA holder in Economic and Management Sciences. He is an Assistant Professor. Before, he was Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Economics and nowadays he is the Director of the Bachelor Course in Economics at University of Algarve. His main research interests are environmental and resource economics and tourism economics.
Cristina Viegas holds both a PhD and a MA in Management. She is an Assistant Professor and a member of the Centre for Advanced Studies in Management and Economics. A few years ago she was also the Director of the Master in Business Management. Now, she is the Director of the new Master in Management with three specializations: Tourism Management, Health Management and Marine & Maritime Management. Her research interests are financial derivatives, real options and mathematical finance and she has published both in national and international journals. She belongs to the Master´s Directive Board.
Efigénio Rebelo is a Full Professor of Quantitative Methods Applied to Economics and Management. PhD holder in Economics, specialized in Econometrics, he also holds both an MA in Econometrics from the School of Economics of the University of Manchester and an MSc in Mathematics Applied to Economics and Management from the Technical University of Lisbon. He has been a member of the Research Centre on Spatial and Organizational Dynamics and his publications in international journals are mainly in the field of quantitative methods. Previously, he was a member of the Council of the University of Algarve and Dean of the Faculty of Economics. Nowadays he is the President of the Scientific Committee and the Director of the PhD Program in Economic and Management Sciences.
João Silva is Full Professor of Economics and a member of the Research Centre on Spatial and Organizational Dynamics. He holds both a PhD and a MA in Economics from the Technical University of Lisbon. He is the Chair of the Economics Department and the Director of the PhD Program in Tourism. He is also the President of the National Commission for the Assessment of University Tourism Programs. His current research interests include economics of tourism, regional development and tourism destinations, sustainability and governance in tourism.
Jorge Andraz is a PhD holder in Economics and a MA holder in Economic and Management Sciences. He is an Assistant Aggregated Professor and a member of the Centre for Advanced Studies in Management and Economics. He authored several books related to the macroeconomic effects of public investments, and several articles published in international journals in the area of applied econometrics focusing macroeconomic and financial issues related to economic growth, the effects of public policies and tourism. He is a Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Economics and also the Director of the Master Course in Financial Economics.
Luís Coelho holds an MSc in Finance from the University of the Algarve, an MSc in Management Research from the School of Management of the University of Cranfield and a PhD in Management from The Business School of the University of Edinburgh. He is an Assistant Professor and a member of the Centre for Advanced Studies in Management and Economics. He is the Director of the Master Course in Corporate Finance and he has authored several papers in the area of finance and accounting. He is also an Associate Fellow of the Accounting, Markets and Organizations Group at the Warwick Business School. He belongs to the Master´s Directive Board.
Marco Freire has more than 20 years of experience in the financial sector. He began his career at PriceWaterHouseCoopers, but spent most of his working years at Whitestar Asset Solutions, S.A, a leading Portuguese professional services organization. Marco is currently the firm's Chief Operations Officer; previously he worked there as the Chief Financial Officer.
Marco is also a guest lecturer at different Portuguese universities, teaching in the areas of financial reporting and investments. He holds an Executive Master in Accounting from ISCTE and a B.A. in Management from the Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa.
Marisa Cesário is a PhD in Economics, University of Algarve. She is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economics, University of Algarve. She authored several articles in the area of Regional Economics and Technological Change. She is currently the Mobility Coordinator - outgoing students of the Faculty of Economics, University of Algarve.
Nélia Norte is a PhD holder in Economics and a MA holder in Economic and Management Sciences. She is an Assistant Professor, President of the Pedagogical Council of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Algarve. Her main interests are labor market, unemployment, unions and wages.
Patrícia Pinto is a PhD holder in Quantitative Methods Applied to Economics and Management, specialized in Statistics, and an Associate Aggregated Professor at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Algarve. She is also the Vice-president of the Research Centre on Spatial and Organizational Dynamics, a member of the coordinating body of the PhD program in Tourism and the Chair of the Quantitative Methods Department. Her current research interests include applied statistics and modeling in the areas of integrated quality management in tourism destinations, events management, tourism destinations image, branding, marketing strategies, customer satisfaction, and environmental behaviour.
Pedro Pintassilgo is a PhD holder in Natural Resource Economics from the New University of Lisbon and an Assistant Aggregated Professor at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Algarve. He is the Director of the Master Course in Tourism Economics and Regional Development and a member of the Research Centre on Spatial and Organizational Dynamics. He has published in influential journals in the fields of environmental economics and tourism economics.
Rúben Peixinho holds an MSc in Finance from the University of the Algarve, an MSc in Management Research from the University of Cranfield and a PhD in Management, specialized in Accounting and Finance, from The University of Edinburgh. He is an Assistant Professor and a member of the Centre for Advanced Studies in Management and Economics. He is the Director of the Master Course in Accounting and has authored several papers in the area of finance and accounting. His main research interests are in market based accounting research, financial distress and security analysis. He belongs to the Master´s Directive Board.
Rui Nunes is both a PhD and a MA holder in Economics, specialized in Econometrics, by the School of Economics of the University of Manchester, and an MSc holder in Mathematics Applied to Economics and Management from the Technical University of Lisbon. Associate Professor of Quantitative Methods Applied to Economics and Management, currently he is a Dean of the Faculty of Economics of the University of Algarve. He is also a member of the General Council of the University of the Algarve and the Director of the PhD Program in Quantitative Methods Applied to Economics and Management. Research interests are mostly in the field of Quantitative Methods Applied to Economics.
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