The course provides students with a solid understanding of the internal and external factors that shape centralized and decentralized financial markets. The second half of the course focuses on understanding and evaluating the opportunities that arise from new technologies, whether decentralized or not. Students will acquire some basic skills to write, articulate, and present the business plan of a decentralized startup and develop an analytical and critical approach, starting from practical perspectives.

Basic mathematics and statistics

The functions and the components of the financial system, financial intermediaries, financial instruments, Banking regulation. Introduction to Blockchain Bitcoin Web3 Markets Tokenization

FINANCIAL MARKETS AND INSITUTIONS, Mishkin - Stanley G. Eakins, Global Edition Chapters from the book "Market Liquidity: Theory, Evidence, and Policy" - Thierry Foucault, Marco Pagano, Ailsa Röell (LINKS BELOW) Slides and extra material provided by the professors. Suggested extra readings: Pedersen N Financial Technology. Korgan Page.

Each week topics on finance are discussed, based on the course’s main literature. In addition, students, in groups, will analyze and discuss case studies relating to the topics studied in class. The case study analysis is part of a written group work. Students are invited to actively participate and contribute during classes.

Students are expected to review the required material before class and to participate in the class. Students are encouraged to ask questions during class and will be given the chance to answer questions. Details regarding the grading criteria for class participation will be provided during the classes. Assessment: (1) Final exam (30%); (2) Project Work (40%); (3) Multichoice test (20%) (4) Cases in class (10%) Cases will be solved by the students (in groups) during the tutorials and graded as class participation. Attendance and participation to the group activities is compulsory unless specific exemptions that need to be discussed with the professor before the beginning of the lectures, by the end of the first week.

Research proposal