About the Center
The CFE was founded in 2007, having been jointly conceived by economics department faculty and Johns Hopkins alumni in the finance industry, many of whom now serve on the CFE advisory board. From both the Wall Street and academic perspectives, the all-pervasive role finance plays in the modern economy had made it vital that the Economics Department and School of Arts and Sciences offer first-class education and cutting edge research in financial economics.
What is financial economics? Finance is the specialty in economics that studies the workings of markets for financial and real assets such as bonds, stocks, houses, and factories. These markets play an indispensible role in the economy, channeling capital into productive uses and allowing firms and individuals to share risks and protect against unforeseen events. We have chosen to emphasize economics in the name of the center to make clear our mission to advance education and research in finance and in the economic rationale underlying modern financial markets.
What makes this program different from a traditional business degree? Housed in a school of liberal arts, our programs will add finance training to a broad-based, first-class liberal arts education. The academic focus of the center is both narrower and broader, in some respects, than a traditional business program. It is is narrower in that we address only finance and not the many other important fields in a business program. The training will be broader and deeper, however, in studying the economic underpinnings—why things work the way they do—and placing finance in the context of the broader economy.
The motivation for our integrated view is clearly illustrated in the recent turmoil in mortgage markets, which through a complex set of linkages has spilled over to other financial markets and onto the U.S. and global economies. We believe an integrated treatment of finance and its role in the economy will serve our students well and will lead to fundamental advances in basic research.
Where is the Center headed? At the outset we are offering a minor in financial economics starting in Fall 2008 and we will take on the running of the very popular financial literacy intersession course. We are working toward offering a financial economics major and a PhD in financial economics. These programs are, however, probably a few years off.
Please contact us if you have questions about our programs or would
like to support mission of the center.
Jon Faust
Director
