University of Commerce Luigi Bocconi

This course gives students the opportunity to improve their ability to build and manage constructive relationships and to get to high value added results managing not only their own, but also other people's performance. The determinants of optimal performance, that is competence, motivation, and positive psychological states, are explored with the aim of both improving the ability to engage oneself and the people they are working with, and the effectiveness when managing problem/underperforming people. Leadership skills gives students the opportunity to reflect and act upon change: change is one of the relevant dimensions of leadership and becoming a leader requires students to go through a personal and professional transition. This course provides the resources needed to specifically manage the transition from Individual Contributor to Manager, encouraging a greater self-awareness and therefore increased effectiveness. This course covers the main theories of leadership: trait, situational approach, transactional, transformational and charismatic leadership; the dark side of leadership. It also covers leadership skills: influence, integration of differences, compelling communication, leading for excellent performance. Other topics covered include: designing and leading teams; minorities, women, and leadership; organizational culture and leadership in multicultural environments. Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of organizational behavior.

This course deals with psychological phenomena, biases, and socially-oriented behavior that affect economically relevant decisions of people. The main focus is on what economists have learned from various experiments, as well as the methodology of answering questions by the means of an experiment. In order to understand better the motivation and contribution of experimental works, the course reviews the structure and predictions of standard models in Microeconomics and discusses the ways in which they are modified or extended to incorporate psychological theory and empirical findings. Students who have preparation in Calculus, Statistics, Econometrics, and Intermediate Microeconomics benefit from the course the most. Lack of background knowledge in one of these disciplines increases the amount of work that students need to do to keep up with their peers.

International Economics dominates the public debate. Has globalization helped or hurt the citizens of developed and emerging nations? What will be the consequences of Brexit for Great Britain and for the EU? Will there be a “trade war” between the United States and China, and what would its consequences be? Is the Euro-Dollar exchange rate too low or too high, and what should the European Central Bank do about it? Getting the answers right is important for policymakers, for economic experts in government and in the private sector, and also for any interested citizen. International Economics gives no ready-made answers to these questions, but it gives us important tools to think about them. The course aims to give students an overview of this framework and show them how it can help us to better understand the world we live in. The course discusses topics including the world economy since the Industrial Revolution; the theory of comparative advantage; the role of resources for trade; the effects of trade and migration on the income distribution; economies of scale and trade; exporters, multinational firms, and offshoring; trade policy; the balance of payments and the true meaning of trade deficits; exchange rates; international capital flows and international financial crises. In order to successfully follow this course, students should be familiar with basic microeconomic concepts such as budget sets, indifference curves, consumer and producer surplus, and marginal cost. They should also be at ease with simple mathematical tools such as derivatives and solution methods for linear equation systems.

The course provides a basic understanding of the probabilistic models and techniques underlying the most widely used classes of stochastic processes. The main focus is on modeling aspects, which are completed by a description of some popular algorithms for simulation. Mathematical concepts are integrated with real-world applications and examples and illustrated through simulations. At the end of the course, students will have bridged the gap between their elementary probability skills and the knowledge required to understand and use basic models based on stochastic processes. The course discusses topics including conditional probabilities and conditional expectations; introduction to stochastic processes and Markov chains; discrete-time Markov chains: Chapman-Kolmogorov equation, Classification of states, Limiting properties, and Applications (e.g. stochastic models, sequential testing, and website ranking); introduction to Stochastic Simulation, Simulation techniques, and Monte Carlo methods; Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms, and Computational applications; counting processes and the Poisson process, Continuous-time stochastic processes, and examples and modeling applications. The course requires students to have solid knowledge of calculus and basic probability theory (e.g. probability distributions and random variables) as a prerequisite. Some knowledge of basic programming tools (such as R) is also required.

Economic policies differ widely across countries and – within the same country – even over time. Among OECD countries, government expenditure ranges from less than 40% in the US to almost 60% in Finland. What explains these large differences? The many tools provided by economic theory generally fail to offer a complete and satisfactory answer to this question. The course mission is to analyze the determinants of economic policy in modern democracies and to show how these policies may differ according to the different political institutions in place. The course consists of four parts. The first part of the course discusses the tools of political economics. The second part of the course compares the welfare states across industrialized countries, with special emphasis on the pension systems and the labor market, and discusses the political feasibility of structural reforms. It also addresses the differences in economic policies that may arise from the political institutions, with particular emphasis on the analysis of the electoral rule and of the regime type. The third part analyzes dynamic policies – public debt, economic growth – in a political economy framework to understand how political incentives shape current and future policies. The last part addresses the debate between the role of culture and institutions in shaping economic growth. To feel comfortable in this course, students should be familiar with the optimization techniques learned in math and microeconomic courses.

The course builds on the concepts of macroeconomics in an open economy to discuss the determinants of exchange rates and the consequences of exchange rate policies for output and prices in the short and long run. A brief history of the international monetary system also explains the establishment of the single European currency. Basic elements of European central banking are discussed and specific issues are dealt in more depth, mainly relating to recent monetary developments including the global financial crisis. The content of the course includes the following: the balance of payments and the foreign exchange market; a simple theory of exchange rate determination, in the short and in the long run; fixed exchange rates and foreign exchange intervention; monetary and fiscal policies with different exchange rate regimes; from Bretton Woods to the Euro: theory and experience of optimal currency areas; monetary institutions and strategies in the Euro area; the international financial crisis: monetary policies and financial stability; the coming future of the international monetary system: the dollar problem, the role of the euro, and the emerging importance of China's money and finance.

The course aims at analyzing the process of economic and political integration of European countries, through a theoretical, policy, and political perspective. European politics occurs in national capitals and in Brussels. Traditionally much of the disciplinary focus has either been on the European Union and integration or the national politics in the Member States. Increasingly, this failure to adequately explore how both levels of government interact reflects neither the state of European politics nor the cutting edge of research. The politics part of this course introduces students to a basic toolkit used by researchers of advanced democracies and international interdependence (including spatial models, veto players, two-level games etc.) to understand both domestic and EU-level politics in Europe in conjunction. The economics part of the course starts with a general overview of EU integration from the 1950s until today. It then moves to discussing the EU budget, with its sources of revenues and areas of expenditure. The main features of the Next Generation EU strategy are also extensively covered. This lays the foundations for studying the main policies currently undertaken by the European Union: competition, agriculture, cohesion, and international trade. The connection between economic and political dynamics is addressed, with specific attention to the link between globalization, Brexit, and the success of nationalist forces in Europe. A substantial part of the course is devoted to the Economic and Monetary Union: origins, architecture, and evolution over the Great Financial Crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic.

This course explores the complexities of multinational financial management, ranging from the management of foreign currency exposures (to determine a subsidiary’s capital structure or to value an investment in a risky country) to the managerial and environmental considerations that make multinational financial decision-making so challenging. Financial decision making in the multinational setting requires a sound understanding of: 1) the extension of traditional finance considerations to a more complex global setting (i.e. Exchange Rate Effects, Global CAPM); 2) how institutional constraints can create obstacles and opportunities for multinational firms (i.e. Opportunities created by different markets); 3) the managerial objectives that can often limit the relevance of traditional financial objectives or institutional opportunities. The framework developed in the course suggests how to balance these three relevant factors: complex financial incentives have to be integrated with institutional obstacles and opportunities and aligned with managerial objectives. The goal then offers both a clear framework and a set of operative tools to understand the relationship between multinational firms and international financial markets. The whole structure of the course is applied, involves several real-world cases that are discussed in class, and is oriented to develop capabilities to understand and use international finance methodologies and practices used around the world. The course requires students to have familiarity with basic topics of corporate finance and a basic knowledge of concepts like risk, return, capital structure, and the CAPM as a prerequisite.

The focus of this course is on how managers can enhance and sustain superior business performance by making sound strategic decisions. The course covers analytical and conceptual models that help in the development of business strategy. The course is designed to expose students to fundamental and advanced topics in business strategy and enable them to analyze business situations from the point of view of the practicing general manager. General managers engage in identifying opportunities and threats in the competitive environment, developing and allocating critical resources, and interacting with competitors. They also identify opportunities for forming strategic alliances and plan how to create and capture value from alliances, especially when collaborating with competitors. The course also studies how managers should negotiate alliance agreements and manage the firm’s alliance portfolio. The course recommends students have prior knowledge in functional areas of economics, marketing, finance, and operations management as a prerequisite.

This course illustrates marketing sustainability models and contributions, describes new relationships that marketing needs to support emerging sustainable business models, and depicts and discusses fundamental variables of the marketing process that allow students to define an operating green marketing strategy. The present scenario shows the advent of a new paradigm at a global level, encompassing customers, markets and companies and based on the concept of “Green Economy.” As a consequence, all managers are faced with new challenges: to fully understand the new paradigm’s rules on the one hand, to infer which might be the new paradigm’s impact in terms of managerial implications and market strategy, on the other hand. The green marketing course’s specific goals are to: single out the most relevant green economy theories and practices, having a deep impact on customer choices and companies’ marketing strategies, such as, for instance, the Cradle-to Cradle approach; develop knowledge as to green products and services’ “go to market,” in particular by identifying which are the key value-drivers generating “green demand;” analyze the green marketing’s key drives for growth and key drives for value; review “Marketing Fundamentals” ( STP, 4Ps, etc.) under the new “green perspective,” in order to make participants able to define a Green STP and a Green 4Ps; single out and analyze the most important, innovative Green Business Models along with their peculiar Marketing-mix; investigate green marketing strategies in selected contexts (B2B,B2C,B2G) and industries (e.g. automotive, retail and e-commerce, building, city planning, food and beverages, "controversial industries"...); and explain how to build up a resilient and successful eco-system, able to deliver a relevant added value to green stakeholders. It is recommended to have attended a course on basic marketing. The knowledge of the pillars of marketing as a discipline is expected.