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2025/2026 KAN-CFIAV2501U Household Finance
| English Title | |
| Household Finance |
Course information |
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| Language | English |
| Course ECTS | 7.5 ECTS |
| Type | Elective |
| Level | Full Degree Master |
| Duration | One Quarter |
| Start time of the course | Autumn, Second Quarter |
| Timetable | Course schedule will be posted at calendar.cbs.dk |
| Study board |
Study Board of Finance, Economics &
Mathematics
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| Last updated on 07-03-2025 | |
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| Learning objectives | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Students should come away from this course with the foundational knowledge that is common to most researchers within the field of household finance, along with a sense of where the active research frontier in the field lies. An important secondary objective of the course is to teach students the art of empirical research: (1) identifying important and interesting questions, (2) identifying the challenges to answering those questions convincingly, (3) understanding common empirical methodologies to overcome those challenges, along with each method’s strengths and weaknesses. The last part will include learning how big data is being harnessed to answer some of the most pressing questions of our time. Another objective of the course (and benefit to the students) is that students should be able to base their master thesis on the final assignment. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Course prerequisites | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A good knowledge of microeconomics, statistics, and finance is recommended. Students who do not have good knowledge of these topics but still wish to enroll, should be prepared to invest a bit of time early in the course to catch up. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Course content, structure and pedagogical approach | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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A sound understanding of personal finance is crucial for everyone aiming to make informed financial choices, avoid costly mistakes and achieve good financial health. It is also a highly sought-after skill by private and public institutions alike.
The course offers an overview of personal finance topics and issues, including financial planning, savings and spending, credit management, financial literacy, the role of expectations, beliefs and personal experiences in financial decision making, financial technology, financial intermediation, retirement planning, intra-household decision making, household heterogeneity in response to monetary policy changes, and gender differences in financial decision making.
The course provides students with a good understanding of the key topics within the household finance literature and will empower them with the tools to achieve their financial goals in life. In addition to learning the theory, students will actively participate in classroom discussions related to real-life cases, existing research and research ideas that will require them to apply their financial knowledge. |
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| Research-based teaching | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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CBS’ programmes and teaching are research-based. The following
types of research-based knowledge and research-like activities are
included in this course:
Research-based knowledge
Research-like activities
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| Description of the teaching methods | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lectures, case discussion, in-class exercises.
Students are expected to participate actively in class discussions. Students are expected to spend a substantial amount of time preparing for the classes reading the assigned material for each class. |
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| Feedback during the teaching period | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Students are provided with continuous feedback to
ensure they can understand the concepts covered in the course and
learn how to apply them both to research projects and real-life
situations/problems.
Feedback takes the form of discussions of real-world cases, existing research, and research ideas that students identify themselves based on their interests. This creates student-motivated discussions in which other fellow students and instructors provide valuable feedback to refine and improve research ideas that the students want to investigate in their written research project to be delivered at the end of the semester. Students will receive additional personalized feedback on research ideas/research project to students in the form of office hours, online meetings, written feedback and in class discussions. The main idea is to provide students with as much feedback as possible throughout the course such that at the end of the semester students have a well-refined research idea that they can implement in a research project and later use a basis for their master thesis if they wish. |
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| Expected literature | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Main readings:
Agarwal, S., & Chua, Y.H. 2023. Household Financial Management. World Scientific Publishing Gomes, Francisco, Michael Haliassos, and Tarun Ramadorai. 2021. "Household Finance." Journal of Economic Literature, 59 (3): 919–1000. Beshears, John, James Choi, David Laibson, and Brigitte Madrian. 2018. “Household finance.” Handbook of Behavioral Economics – Foundations and Applications 1. Badarinza C, Campbell JY, Ramadorai T. International Comparative Household Finance. Annual Review of Economics. 2016;8. Guiso, Luigi, and Paolo Sodini. 2013 "Household Finance: An Emerging Field" Handbook Chapter
In addition, much of the material covered during the course will be in the form of research papers related to the topic under investigation at each time. |
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