26 episodes

(ECON 252) Financial institutions are a pillar of civilized society, supporting people in their productive ventures and managing the economic risks they take on. The workings of these institutions are important to comprehend if we are to predict their actions today and their evolution in the coming information age. The course strives to offer understanding of the theory of finance and its relation to the history, strengths and imperfections of such institutions as banking, insurance, securities, futures, and other derivatives markets, and the future of these institutions over the next century.

This course was recorded in Spring 2008.

Financial Markets - Video Robert Shiller

    • Business
    • 3.5 • 158 Ratings

(ECON 252) Financial institutions are a pillar of civilized society, supporting people in their productive ventures and managing the economic risks they take on. The workings of these institutions are important to comprehend if we are to predict their actions today and their evolution in the coming information age. The course strives to offer understanding of the theory of finance and its relation to the history, strengths and imperfections of such institutions as banking, insurance, securities, futures, and other derivatives markets, and the future of these institutions over the next century.

This course was recorded in Spring 2008.

    • video
    04 - Portfolio Diversification and Supporting Financial Institutions (CAPM Model)

    04 - Portfolio Diversification and Supporting Financial Institutions (CAPM Model)

    Portfolio diversification is the most fundamental concept of risk management. The allocation of financial resources in stocks, bonds, riskless, assets, oil and other assets determine the expected return and risk of a portfolio. Taking account of covariances and expected returns, investors can create a diversified portfolio that maximizes expected return for a given level of risk. An important mission of financial institutions is to provide portfolio-diversification services.

    • 4 sec
    • video
    01 - Finance and Insurance as Powerful Forces in Our Economy and Society

    01 - Finance and Insurance as Powerful Forces in Our Economy and Society

    Professor Shiller provides a description of the course, Financial Markets, including administrative details and the topics to be discussed in each lecture. He briefly discusses the importance of studying finance and each key topic. Lecture topics will include: behavioral finance, financial technology, financial instruments, commercial banking, investment banking, financial markets and institutions, real estate, regulation, monetary policy, and democratization of finance.

    • 4 sec
    • video
    02 - The Universal Principle of Risk Management: Pooling and the Hedging of Risks

    02 - The Universal Principle of Risk Management: Pooling and the Hedging of Risks

    Statistics and mathematics underlie the theories of finance. Probability Theory and various distribution types are important to understanding finance. Risk management, for instance, depends on tools such as variance, standard deviation, correlation, and regression analysis. Financial analysis methods such as present values and valuing streams of payments are fundamental to understanding the time value of money and have been in practice for centuries.

    • 4 sec
    • video
    03 - Technology and Invention in Finance

    03 - Technology and Invention in Finance

    Technology and innovation underlie finance. In order to manage risks successfully, particularly long-term, we must pool large amounts of risk among many, diverse people and overcome barriers such as moral hazard and erroneous framing. Inventions such as insurance contracts and social security, and information technology all the way from such simple things as paper, and the postal service to modern computers have helped to manage risks and to encourage financial systems to address issues pertaining to risk. The tax and welfare system is one of the most important risk management systems.

    • 4 sec
    • video
    26 - Learning from and Responding to Financial Crisis, Part II (Guest Lecture by Lawrence Summers)

    26 - Learning from and Responding to Financial Crisis, Part II (Guest Lecture by Lawrence Summers)

    In the second of his two lectures in honor of Arthur Okun, Professor Summers points out that real interest rates have been very low in the current subprime crisis. This indicates that the shock to the economy was more a financial breakdown shock than a disinflation shock. But financial breakdown shocks are not necessarily very harmful to the economy, so long as financial intermediation capital is not destroyed. In a financial crisis like the present one, financial firms are likely to take the step of decreasing their leverage, often by contracting loans, which creates its own risks for the economy. Regulators should place pressure on financial institutions to raise their capital and should intervene in near foreclosure situations, but should not attempt to support housing prices.

    • 5 sec
    • video
    25 - Learning from and Responding to Financial Crisis, Part I (Guest Lecture by Lawrence Summers)

    25 - Learning from and Responding to Financial Crisis, Part I (Guest Lecture by Lawrence Summers)

    Professor Summers, former U. S. Treasury Secretary and former President of Harvard University, in this the first of two lectures in honor of former Yale Professor and Council of Economic Advisors chairman Arthur Okun, offers thoughts on the role of monetary policy in economic fluctuations, past and present. In the "Okun period," ending about when Okun died in 1980, the monetary authorities were very much involved in actually creating economic contractions. Inflation would repeatedly get out of control, the Fed would hit the brakes, and the economy would slow. But, that is not the story of the economic cycles of the last two decades. Recent economic cycles appear to be connected with factors endogenous to the financial system, such as bubbles or cycles of complacency among lending institutions. Summers argues that to understand the financial markets and the economy, we must consider models of multiple equilibria, such as bank run models, where a change in confidence may shift the economy drastically without any change in fundamentals.

    • 5 sec

Customer Reviews

3.5 out of 5
158 Ratings

158 Ratings

pushycat ,

Looking for updated podcast

This is a time piece. I just found this podcast and wish that i could subscribe to listen again. The ideas are good to consider.

Re-ally- tired ,

Education Director

I couldn't watch for long due to the constant use of the word.....uh. I find it irritating that a professor or any professional speaker would continually do that. It makes him sound incompetent. He needs to be prepared and know his subject in and out. I feel sorry for the students who have to glean important information from this person. I'm very dissapointed and now have a little more idea why our college graduates can't get a job. Someone please send this man to get some training in effective speaking

PrinceCorum ,

Marginally interesting. Of questionable value.

Watching the first 7 lectures of Schiller's course serves ironically as a lesson in what is wrong with modern academia. Schiller yammers and dodders down assorted tangents, sharing minimally interesting anecdotes and tales -seemingly self-assured that somewhere therein lies educational merit. Do yourself a favor and skip the first lecture outright, which contains possibly four or five useful bullet points which Schiller manages to extrude into a painful, time-intensive meander.

More disturbing than Schiller's low ratio of educational value to time spent droning, are of course his particular biases and beliefs about finance - which he presents ex-cathedra, and which deserve (and have received) ample criticism.

Along the way, students are handed the works of lightweight pseudo-economists like Jeremy Siegel and other market-friendly shills who excel at spinning data into supporting arguments.

The course does have some merit - particularly for those who have no former knowledge or experience. But one must take with a grain of salt, those who emerge from such programs considering themselves to have received sound platform in the subject matter.

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