FIN 396H: Finance and Society
Course Outline and TimeTable - Fall 2022

CL

M

Topics

Readings

Perusall and Other Assignment Due Dates

Article(s) for Class Presentation/Discussion

Sept 7

1

Introduction to finance

• BrightSpace Note: The Financial System
• BrightSpace Note: Financial Institutions
• BrightSpace Note: Functions of the Financial System

Sept 14

Class Meeting

• BrightSpace Note: Corporate Governance

McMillan, John, Reinventing the Bazar: A Natural History of Markets, Chapter 13

Sept 21

Class Meeting

• Goetzmann, William. “Finance and Urbanism,” Chapter 2 in Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible, Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.
• Goetzmann, William. “China’s first financial world,” Chapter 8 in Money Changes Everything: How Finance Made Civilization Possible, Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ.

Sept 28

Class Meeting

• Gobat, Jeanne, “What is a bank?” Finance and Development, March 2012
• Grossman, Richard.  “The Origins of Banking,” in Unsettled Account, Princeton University Press.

Oct 12

Class Meeting

• Marco Pagano and Paolo Volpin, “The Political Economy of Finance,” Review of Economic Policy, 2001, vol. 17, no. 4, 502-519 (http://faculty.london.edu/pvolpin/review.pdf)

• Sandel, Michael, “Market Reasoning as Moral Reasoning: Why Economists Should Re-engage with Political Philosophy,” Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 27, Number 4—Fall 2013—Pages 121–140.
• Timothy Besley, “What's the Good of the Market? An Essay on Michael Sandel's ‘What Money Can't Buy’” Journal of Economic Literature , June 2013, Vol. 51, No. 2, pp. 478-495

Oct 19

Class meeting

• Sandel, Michael. The Tyranny of Merit, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux: New York, 2020. Chapters 1, 5 and conclusion.

• John Dobson (1993) The Role of Ethics in Finance, Financial Analysts Journal, 49:6, 57-61, DOI: 10.2469/faj.v49.n6.57
• John Dobson (1997) Ethics in Finance II, Financial Analysts Journal, 53:1, 15-25, DOI: 10.2469/faj.v53.n1.2052

Oct 24-26

Test 1

• Aiello, Steven. “The Balance between Idealism and Realism in Jewish Financial Law,” Working Paper
• Islam and the Economy, Chapter 5.

Oct 26

Class Meeting

• Abbas Mirakhor and Iqbal Zaidi, “Profit-and-loss sharing contracts in Islamic finance,” Chapter 4 of Hassan, Kabir and Mervyn Lewis Handbook of Islamic Banking.
• Visser and McIntosh, A short review of the historical critique of usury, Accounting, Business and Financial History, Vol. 8, no. 2, 1998, http://www.alastairmcintosh.com/articles/1998_usury.htm
• Jared Rubin, “Rulers, Religion and Riches,” Chapter 4

Social Justice Week, Presentation by Prof. Michael Chernick

• Aiello, Steven. “The Balance between Idealism and Realism in Jewish Financial Law,” Working Paper
• Islam and the Economy, Chapter 5.

Nov 2

Class Meeting

• Bateman, Milford (2013). Financing local economic development: in search of the optimal local financial system. In: ÖFSE (Hg.) Österreichische Entwicklungspolitik, Analysen ▪ Berichte ▪ Informationen mit dem Schwerpunktthema “Private Sector Development – Ein neuer Businessplan für Entwicklung?”, Wien, 43-52
• Georgina M. Gomez, A.H.J. Helmsing, World Development, Vol. 36:11, Pages 2489-2511, Selective Spatial Closure and Local Economic Development: What Do We Learn from the Argentine Local Currency Systems?

Christy Chung Hevener, “Alternative Financial Vehicles: Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs), Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Community Affairs Department Discussion Paper, November 2006, https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/frbp/assets/community-development/discussion-papers/discussionpaper-ROSCAs.pdf

Kathryn Boodry, Making Money: Cotton, Slavery and Finance across the Atlantic, 1815–1837.

Nov 9

Class Meeting

• Baradaran, Mehrsa. The Color of Money, Chapter 6: The Decoy of Black Capitalism
• Alicia Robb, “Access to Capital among Young Firms, Minority-owned Firms, Women-owned Firms, and High-tech Firms,” Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, April 2013.

Kathryn Boodry, Making Money: Cotton, Slavery and Finance across the Atlantic, 1815–1837.

Nov 16

Class Meeting

• Greenwood, Robin and David Scharfstein, “The Growth of Finance,” Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 27, Number 2—Spring 2013—Pages 3–28
• Zingales, Luigi. “Does Finance Benefit Society,” The Journal of Finance, August 2015, Vol. 70, No. 4, pp. 1327- 1363

“Consumer use of payday, auto title, and pawn loans: Insights from the Making Ends Meet Survey,” May 05, 2021, https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/research-reports/consumer-use-of-payday-auto-title-and-pawn-loans-insights-making-ends-meet-survey/

Nov 30

Class Meeting

• Douglas W. Diamond and Raghuram Rajan, “The Credit Crisis: Conjectures about Causes and Remedies,” NBER Working Paper No. 14739
• How the Great Recession Changed American Workers, Sep 10, 2018, https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/great-recession-american-dream/ and associated Wharton podcast

Dec 7

Class Meeting

• Kerstine Appunn. Understanding the European Union’s Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), 20 Jul 2021.
• Hafstead, Marc. Carbon Pricing 101, Resources for the Future, https://media.rff.org/documents/Carbon_Pricing_Explainer.pdf

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2021/09/04/sustainable-investing-faces-the-beginnings-of-a-backlash

BS Quiz 15
Submit Final Civic Engagement Project Report

Dec 14

Class Meeting

• Social Impact Bonds: An Overview, Rockefeller Foundation
• Lund, Dorothy S., Corporate Finance for Social Good,"Columbia Law Review, June 2021, Vol. 121, No. 5, pp. 1617-1658

Dec 21

Test 2
Berkshares case class discussion