Financial Markets (ECON 252) with Robert Shiller
Shiller's Yale undergraduate course on how financial institutions manage risk, recorded in full with transcripts. It covers efficient markets, behavioral finance, debt, banks, derivatives and money management, and includes guest lectures by David Swensen and Hank Greenberg.
Free to read
Open Yale Courses recorded the Spring 2011 version of ECON 252 in full: 23 lectures plus the exams, with video, audio and transcripts. Shiller treats finance as the technology a society uses to manage risk, and he moves from insurance and diversification to efficient markets, behavioral finance, leverage cycles, real estate, banks, investment banks, futures and options, monetary policy and exchanges.
The course stands out for its guests: David Swensen of the Yale endowment, former AIG chief Maurice Greenberg, and Laura Cha. Readings range from a standard institutions textbook to Bagehot's Lombard Street and Brandeis's Other People's Money.
This is the right first course for a student or career-changer who wants to know why the financial system is built the way it is, before learning the math. Expect 75-minute classroom lectures rather than short clips. The same course is also offered on Coursera.
Start with
-
1
Lecture 6: Guest Speaker David Swensen
The architect of the Yale endowment model explains his approach in his own words.
-
2
Lecture 7: Efficient Markets
Shiller's take on the theory he spent his career challenging.
-
3
Lecture 11: Behavioral Finance and the Role of Psychology
The core of his contribution, in a single class.
