Friday Factoid: Columbia’s Program for Financial Studies

Already well known as a finance powerhouse, Columbia Business School has stepped up its finance game with the recent (2010) establishment of the Program for Financial Studies. The umbrella initiative connects faculty who approach financial studies from a variety of disciplines with students, alumni and external organizations. The program’s main goals are to support research, to enhance the Columbia finance curriculum and related resources for students and to create opportunities for the exchange of ideas between Columbia students and faculty and members of the external finance community. Finance wonks will enjoy the program’s finance case studies, including “The Norwegian Government Pension Fund: The Divestiture of Wal-Mart Inc.,” written by Professor Andrew Ang and “Don’t Be Evil: Google’s 2004 Dutch Auction Initial Public Offering,” written by the program’s director, Professor Laurie Hodrick.