Thursday, April 24, 2014

Coursera Review: Financial Markets by Robert Shiller

In this series of posts, I will share some experiences from the on-line learning platform coursera.org

Today: Financial Markets by Robert Shiller from Yale University.


1. What is the course about?

The course introduces basic facts and history of financial markets: stocks, bonds, real estate, regulation, monetary policy, , market participants, market crashes, basics of behavioural finance, public finance. 

The course includes video lectures and Q&A sessions with the professor, discussion groups, test quizzes, peer-reviewed essay, final exam, guest lectures.

Level: Introductory, 1st or 2nd year undergraduate.

2. Who should use it?

2.1. Freshman students in Economics or Business disciplines, as well as anybody else who would like to learn the basics of financial markets.

3. Who should NOT use it?

3.1. The course is excellent, but just an introduction to the topic, so anybody who wants a very deep, graduate level study might be disappointed.

4. What is the best thing about this course?

Prof. Schiller is an excellent lecturer. The course gives a personal, close feeling of himself, of Yale University, as well as of a range of extremely popular and interesting finance & economics professionals. Guest lecturers included Maurice Greenberg (former AIG CEO), David Swenson (Chief Investment Officer at Yale -- the Yale Investment Model), Laura Cha (Market Regulator Executive in China), Carl Icahn (activist investor), Andy Readleaf (Hedge Fund manager), Larry Summers (Treasury Secretary under president Clinton) and Stephen Schwarzman (founder of Blackstone group).

5. What is the worst thing about this course?

Test quizzes had a few technical errors.