Lu Liu

Current Courses (Spring 2025)

• FNCE2510 - Fnce Of Buyouts & Acqs

  The course focuses on financial tools, techniques, and best practices used in buyouts (financial buyers) and acquisitions (strategic buyers). While it will touch upon various strategic, organizational, and general management issues, the main lens for studying these transactions will be a financial one. It will explore how different buyers approach the process of finding, evaluating, and analyzing opportunities in the corporate-control market; how they structure deals and how deal structure affects both value creation and value division; how they add value after transaction completion; and how they realize their ultimate objectives (such as enhanced market position or a profitable exit). The course is divided into two broad modules. The first module covers mergers and acquisitions, and the second one studies buyouts by private equity partnerships. FNCE 2030 or FNCE 2070 are recommended.

  FNCE2510001 ( Syllabus )

  FNCE2510002 ( Syllabus )

• FNCE9260 - Empirical Meth Corp Fn

  The course will cover a variety of micro-econometric models and methods including panel data models, program evaluation methods e.g. difference in differences, matching techniques, regression discontinuity design, instrumental variables, duration models, structural estimation, simulated methods of moments. The structure of the course consists of lectures, student presentations, and empirical exercises. Published studies will be utilized in a variety of fields such as corporate finance, labor economics, and industrial organization to illustrate the various techniques. The goal of the course is to provide students with a working knowledge of various econometric techniques that they can apply in their own research. As such, the emphasis of the course is on applications, not theory. Students are required to have taken a graduate sequence in Econometrics, you should be comfortable with econometrics at the level of William Green's "Econometric Analysis of Cross-Section and Panel Data".

  FNCE9260001 ( Syllabus )

All Courses

• FNCE2510 - Fnce of Buyouts & Acqs

  The course focuses on financial tools, techniques, and best practices used in buyouts (financial buyers) and acquisitions (strategic buyers). While it will touch upon various strategic, organizational, and general management issues, the main lens for studying these transactions will be a financial one. It will explore how different buyers approach the process of finding, evaluating, and analyzing opportunities in the corporate-control market; how they structure deals and how deal structure affects both value creation and value division; how they add value after transaction completion; and how they realize their ultimate objectives (such as enhanced market position or a profitable exit). The course is divided into two broad modules. The first module covers mergers and acquisitions, and the second one studies buyouts by private equity partnerships. FNCE 2030 or FNCE 2070 are recommended.

• FNCE9260 - Empirical Meth Corp Fn

  The course will cover a variety of micro-econometric models and methods including panel data models, program evaluation methods e.g. difference in differences, matching techniques, regression discontinuity design, instrumental variables, duration models, structural estimation, simulated methods of moments. The structure of the course consists of lectures, student presentations, and empirical exercises. Published studies will be utilized in a variety of fields such as corporate finance, labor economics, and industrial organization to illustrate the various techniques. The goal of the course is to provide students with a working knowledge of various econometric techniques that they can apply in their own research. As such, the emphasis of the course is on applications, not theory. Students are required to have taken a graduate sequence in Econometrics, you should be comfortable with econometrics at the level of William Green's "Econometric Analysis of Cross-Section and Panel Data".

• Homer Hoyt Dissertation Award (American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, AREUEA), 2024
• Arthur Warga Award, Best Paper in Fixed Income (SFS Cavalcade), 2023
• Marshall Blume Prize, 2024

Knowledge at Wharton

• The U.S. Housing Market Has Homeowners Stuck | Lu Liu, Knowledge at Wharton - 5/7/2024
• Why Long-term Home Mortgages Have Costly Trade-offs, Knowledge at Wharton - 9/26/2023
• Two-thirds of Households Have Locked in Mortgage Rates of 4% or Less, Knowledge at Wharton - 9/21/2023
• How Households Are Locked In by Rising Mortgage Rates, Knowledge at Wharton - 4/24/2023
• How This Psychological Effect Skews Home Prices, Knowledge at Wharton - 1/10/2023