Jules H. van Binsbergen

Jules H. van Binsbergen
  • The Nippon Life Professor in Finance, Professor of Finance

Contact Information

  • office Address:

    2460 Steinberg-Dietrich Hall
    3620 Locust Walk
    Philadelphia, PA 19104

Research Interests: asset pricing, institutional investors, investments

Links: CV, Personal Website

Overview

Jules van Binsbergen conducts theoretical and empirical research in finance. His current work focuses on asset pricing, in particular the relationship between financial markets and the macro economy, and the organization, skill and performance of financial intermediaries. Some of his recent research focuses on the influence of financial market anomalies on real economic activity, measuring the skill of mutual fund managers and the term structure of cash flow growth and stock return predictability. Professor van Binsbergen’s research has appeared in leading academic journals, such as the American Economic Review, the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics and the Journal of Monetary Economics. He received his PhD from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University. After obtaining his PhD in 2008, he joined the faculty at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, where he got tenure in 2014. He joined the Wharton School in 2014.

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Research

Teaching

Finance 611: Corporate Finance (Core)

All Courses

  • FNCE2050 - Investment Management

    This course studies the concepts and evidence relevant to the management of investment portfolios. Topics include diversification, asset allocation, portfolio optimization, factor models, the relation between risk and return, trading, passive (e.g., index-fund) and active (e.g., hedge-fund, long-short) strategies, mutual funds, performance evaluation, long-horizon investing and simulation. The course deals very little with individual security valuation and discretionary investing (i.e., "equity research" or "stock picking"). In addition to course prerequisites, STAT 1020 may be taken concurrently.

  • FNCE3510 - ASP: Finance and Society

    This interdisciplinary course delves into the history of different economic and financial systems around the world. Students will analyze the economic and financial interactions between individuals, financial and non-financial corporations, governments, and the media under various systems and through the pre-modern, modern and postmodern eras. After theoretically exploring each system and their underlying philosophy, students critically evaluate them through data-driven analysis. In the process, the course offers students a rigorous introduction to the scientific method and its enlightenment origins, as well as the resulting empirical tools used in the social sciences. The course will be intellectually rigorous but not overly mathematical.

  • FNCE3990 - Independent Study

    Integrates the work of the various courses and familiarizes the student with the tools and techniques of research.

  • FNCE6110 - Corporate Finance

    This course serves as an introduction to business finance (corporate financial management and investments) for both non-majors and majors preparing for upper-level course work. The primary objective is to provide the framework, concepts, and tools for analyzing financial decisions based on fundamental principles of modern financial theory. The approach is rigorous and analytical. Topics covered include discounted cash flow techniques; corporate capital budgeting and valuation; investment decisions under uncertainty; capital asset pricing; options; and market efficiency. The course will also analyze corporate financial policy, including capital structure, cost of capital, dividend policy, and related issues. Additional topics will differ according to individual instructors.

  • FNCE6210 - Corporate Finance (Half CU)

    This half-semester course serves as an introduction to corporate investments for non-majors. The primary objective is to provide a framework, concepts, and tools for analyzing financial decisions based on fundamental principles of modern financial theory. Topics covered include discounted cash flow techniques, corporate capital budgeting and valuation, investment decisions under uncertainty, and capital asset pricing. The approach is rigorous and analytical but the course will not cover several topics included in the full semester Corporate Finance course, including: market efficiency, corporate financial policy (including capital structure, cost of capital, dividend policy, and related issues), and options.

  • FNCE7050 - Investment Management

    This course studies the concepts and evidence relevant to the management of investment portfolios. Topics include diversification, asset allocation, portfolio optimization, factor models, the relation between risk and return, trading, passive (e.g., index-fund) and active (e.g., hedge-fund, long-short) strategies, mutual funds, performance evaluation, long-horizon investing and simulation. The course deals very little with individual security valuation and discretionary investing (i.e., "equity research" or "stock picking").

  • FNCE7070 - Valuation

    The focus of this course is on the valuation of companies. The course covers current conceptual and theoretical valuation frameworks and translates those frameworks into practical approaches for valuing companies. The relevant accounting topics and the appropriate finance theory are integrated to show how to implement the valuation frameworks discussed on a step-by-step basis. The course teaches how to develop the required information for valuing companies from financial statements and other information sources in a real-world setting. Topics covered in depth include discounted cash flow techniques and price multiples. In addition, the course covers other valuation techniques such as leveraged buyout analysis.

  • FNCE8950 - Global Business Week

    The Global Business Week (GBW) is set of classes offered annually to WEMBA second years. They are often repeated, but try to accommodate student interest along with faculty expertise and willingness, so can change with some regularity.

  • FNCE8990 - Independent Study

    Independent Study Projects require extensive independent work and a considerable amount of writing. ISP in Finance are intended to give students the opportunity to study a particular topic in Finance in greater depth than is covered in the curriculum. The application for ISP's should outline a plan of study that requires at least as much work as a typical course in the Finance Department that meets twice a week. Applications for FNCE 8990 ISP's will not be accepted after the THIRD WEEK OF THE SEMESTER. ISP's must be supervised by a Standing Faculty member of the Finance Department.

  • FNCE9250 - Topics in Asset Pricing

    This course exposes student to recent development in the asset pricing literature. The starting point for the course is the standard neo-classical rational expectations framework. We will then investigate where this frameworkhas succeeded and where it has not. Recently documented deviations from the framework in the literature are discussed and placed in context. The course will also focus on hypothesis development, recent research methods, and research writing. The ultimate objective is for students to develop their own hyoptheses and research ideas, resulting in a paper.

Awards and Honors

Activity

Latest Research

Jonathan Berk, Jules van Binsbergen, Maxwell Miller (2020), Mutual Funds: Skill and Performance, The Journal of Portfolio Management. https://doi.org/10.3905/jpm.2020.1.143
All Research

In the News

How to Bring More Predictive Power to Economic Forecasts

A new study co-authored by Wharton’s Jules van Binsbergen uses a machine learning algorithm to produce more accurate and granular forecasts for GDP growth, employment, and interest-rate decisions.Read More

Knowledge at Wharton - 5/9/2023
All News

Wharton Magazine

Bringing More Predictive Power to Economic Forecasts
Wharton Magazine - 10/20/2023