Financial economics aims to introduce students to main theoretical models used by financial economists. This course focused on the finance aspects of general equilibrium theory with asset markets, which theory constitutes the intellectual foundation of asset pricing models commonly applied in the analysis of financial markets. From this, for example, we can learn that a willingness to insure risk may result from the possibility of diversification. The law of one price has been exploited successfully to determine asset prices by noting that equilibrium prices must be free from arbitrage. Modern asset-pricing methods such as Black-Scholes formula, have their roots in the theory of competitive markets.

Intermediate Financial Theory is an excellent course that introduces financial asset pricing theory as a natural extension of microeconomic and general equilibrium theory. The exposition of classic and recent results is clear, thorough and accessible to any economist or graduate student who has a good grounding in microeconomic theory. Having mastered this course the student is well equipped to tackle the many variations of asset pricing models in the literature.

Jean-Pierre Danthine&John Donaldson
:Intermediate Financial Theory,2013