We begin this course by exploring the importance of the financial market environment on corporate financial decision-making. Using the example of Kellogg’s, we cover the key financial markets that are reflected in the company’s financial statements. We briefly introduce their key functions and features in providing flow of funds, price discovery and risk management.

This week we discuss the value added by financial markets to corporate development and economic growth. We cover the key roles of price discovery, flow of funds, efficient capital allocation, portfolio diversification and corporate governance. Introducing the influential participants in financial markets, we discuss how they contribute to the efficiency of those markets. We stress the important empirical result that countries with more developed and efficient financial markets experience faster economic growth and development.

In week 3 we discuss the limits to economic growth imposed by imperfections and inefficiencies in global financial markets. The need for liquidity (and the impact of a lack of liquidity) to guarantee efficient markets has been evident in the recent financial crisis. We also discuss the necessary trust in, and integrity of financial markets. Governments, regulators and rating agencies fulfil an important role to secure trust in the fairness and integrity of markets, but there is also a strong incentive for self regulation of markets.

In the final week of this course we focus our discussion on the interrelatedness of (global) financial markets. What happens on the New York Stock Exchange affects equity markets worldwide, and a crash in the commodity market may trigger a sharp depreciation in a currency on the foreign exchange market. We discuss how this “web” of capital markets contributed to the Global Financial Crisis, and what the future holds for financial markets.