Best Free MOOCs In Business For August

Behavioral Finance

Behavioral Finance

School: Duke University

Platform: Coursera

Registration Link: REGISTER HERE

Start Date: August 1, 2016 (3 Weeks)

Workload: Not specified

Instructor: Emma Rasiel

Credentials: Rasiel teaches courses in Intermediate Finance and Behavioral Finance at Duke University, where she also serves as the teaching director of the Duke Financial Education Center. Holding a Ph.D. in finance from Duke and an MBA from the Wharton School, Rasiel was the executive director at Goldman Sachs’s London office.

Graded: Students must successfully complete all graded assignments to pass the course.

Description: Youā€™ve probably read the business pages and thought to yourself, ā€œIā€™d never do that. Thatā€™s too risky. Donā€™t they know the rules apply to them too?ā€ Well, thatā€™s easier said than done. Many times, particularly in the financial world, investors donā€™t always act rationally. They act against their long-term interests by following the herd; correlating two disparate events or trends; accepting only data that conforms to their beliefs; or believing they are exceptions who are smarter than everyone else.

Like all behavior, investing sometimes involves irrational fear and exuberance, if not outright hubris. According to Rasiel, behavioral finance ā€œis the study of these and dozens of other financial decision-making errors that can be avoided, if we are familiar with the biases that cause them.ā€ In this class, students will learn about the heuristics (the shortcuts and ā€œrules of thumbā€ that we use to invest) that often lead to tragic financial decisions. These examples, from Rasielā€™s experience, may include everything from holding onto poorly performing investments to skimping on insurance.

Over this three -week course, students will review “rational” economic theories before moving into scenarios where investors ā€œare most inclined to make decisions that appear to defy rational choice axioms.ā€ From there, the course will move into why investors are more ā€œinclined to distort probabilities, and either underestimate or overestimate the likelihood of certain outcomes.ā€ At the same time, Rasiel will cover common types of bias and strategies for enhancing financial decision-making.

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