Economics is an important foundation for business research. This course focuses on the behavior of individuals and firms in various market settings. Classical issues of demand, supply, and market equilibrium, as well as topics more germane to business research such as contracting and theory of firm are covered. Throughout, focus is on developing economic intuition, understanding applications to business research, and accumulating an in-depth understanding of useful economic theories and tools.

Examines financial decisions people must make in their personal lives. Covers personal taxation, housing and mortgages, consumer credit, insurance (including life, health, property and casualty), and retirement and estate planning. Also reviews the common financial investments made by individuals, including stocks, bonds, money market instruments and mutual funds. This class involves extensive use of the internet for access to information. (Students in the Finance Program may use this course only as a free elective, not as a course creditable towards the Finance Program.)

This course introduces the foundations and processes of hotel asset management, including real estate and the physical asset, franchising, hotel chain affiliations, hotel management and franchise contracts, hotel valuation, and financial analysis of hotel investments. This course provides a framework for understanding hotel asset management and real estate investment from the financial and operational aspects.

This course provides a quantitatively rigorous overview of hospitality asset management. Furthermore, it builds on the theoretical foundation of portfolio optimization and capital asset pricing theory, which are applied directly to hospitality assets and their management. Students will learn how to solve for an optimal financing solution (e.g., refinancing, selling, leasing) given a hospitality asset’s cash flow issues with budget constraints. At the end of the course, students will be able to: (1) Understand complex cash flow information and quantitatively identify asset management issues; (2) Use discounted cash flow model and computations to recommend an improved financing and management decision; (3) Draft a technical report and recommendations based on statistical analysis; (4) Apply the obtained quantitative acumen to hospitality-like durable assets and extend the analysis in other asset classes; (5) Perform textual analysis using factor models and generative AI to extract key information of distressed hospitality asset and debt conditions.