Business, Finance and the World We Live In

During and immediately following the Great Financial Crisis (commonly referred to not surprisingly as the "GFC") I was terribly disappointed by the extremely poor quality of discourse among politicians, those purporting to be experts, and those supposedly reporting the financial and other news. It was clear to me that while there were more than enough MBAs, bankers and financial professionals, we were terribly lacking in informed and educated citizens who could understand the complex financial world around them and make better informed judgments and decisions.

I endeavored to create course materials that would teach basic corporate finance to college students intending to pursue a career in an area other than banking and finance. I was fortunate to be given the opportunity to teach the course "Corporate Finance for Non-finance Majors" as part of the Hofstra University Undergraduate Honors Program. The course was never designed or intended as a substitute for more comprehensive courses in corporate finance and valuation taught in business schools around the country. This was very much an introductory course, for individuals with little or no business or finance background.

The course proved popular with students, and I taught it for a number of years, adapting it for the Hofstra Law School as well. The materials have gone through many iterations as I tried to present the complexities of topics such as accounting, the cost of capital and valuation methodologies in a way that would be fully accessible to pre-med students, engineering students, philosophy majors, dance majors and matriculated law students. I have done my very best but know there is always room for improvement.

Set out below you will find a Table of Contents for the course materials. If you would like to look at any of the materials, please reach out to me and I will be very happy to send you whatever is of interest.

I take responsibility for all the content. If you see something that you believe is in error, please let me know.

I want to thank all the authors whose exceptional work I have found of enormous value. Much of that work I have cited throughout these materials; even more I have not. All of it is listed on my reading list for Business and Finance elsewhere on this site.

A special thank you to Professor Aswath Damodaran of New York University's Stern School of Business for the extraordinary work you do every day and for your unlimited generosity in sharing your data and insights with both students, practitioners and other academics.