Marius Guenzel

Current Courses (Spring 2025)

• FNCE2390 - Behavioral Finance

  This course combines insights from behavioral economics and psychology to shed light on anomalous decisions by investors and possibly behavior of asset prices. Its content is designed to both complement and challenge the "rational" investment paradigms developed in the early finance classes. It introduces students to much modern theoretical and empirical research showing this paradigm to be insufficient to describe various features of actual financial markets. The course structure involves early lectures, several cases, and a final project involving "real life" examples and some modern research methods. In the capstone project students research and explore a specific behavioral bias or a profitable investment opportunity. Students will work in groups to simulate the behavior of, say: a portfolio management team looking for a new trading strategy; a consulting firm advising corporations on issues of financial management; or an entrepreneurial start-up developing a retail financial product. The main deliverable is in a form of a "pitch" to potential clients to be delivered both in the form of a group presentation in class and a formal write-up to be submitted by the due date.

  FNCE2390001 ( Syllabus )

• FNCE7390 - Behavioral Finance

  There is an abundance of evidence suggesting that the standard economic paradigm - rational agents in an efficient market - does not adequately describe behavior in financial markets. In this course, we will survey the evidence and use psychology to guide alternative theories of financial markets. Along the way, we will address the standard argument that smart, profit-seeing agents can correct any distortions caused by irrational investors. Further, we will examine more closely the preferences and trading decisions of individual investors. We will argue that their systematic biases can aggregate into observed market inefficiencies, thus giving rise to apparently profitable trading strategies. The latter part of the course extends the analysis to corporate decision making. We then explore the evidence for both views in the context of capital structure, investment, dividend, and merger decisions. In addition to prerequisites, FNCE 7050 is highly recommended but not required.

  FNCE7390001 ( 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 )

• AI Personality Extraction from Faces: Labor Market Implications, Marginal Revolution - 02/15/2025
• AI Photo Analysis Illuminates How Personality Traits Predict Career Trajectories‌, Yale Insights - 01/30/2025
• How to Survive Being a 24/7 Boss, The Wall Street Journal - 02/01/2024
• Managerial stress accelerates aging and increases mortality among CEOs, IZA Commentary - 09/24/2023
• How Sunk Costs Affect Firms’ Investment Decisions, Knowledge at Wharton - 01/23/2023
• One Secret to a Longer Life: Don’t Become CEO in an Embattled Industry, The Wall Street Journal - 09/22/2021
• Managerial Stress Can Literally Take Years Off Your Life, Forbes - 03/19/2021
• Stressed-out CEOs visibly age faster and die earlier, according to a new study, Business Insider - 03/17/2021
• Executive stress tests, The New York Times DealBook - 03/17/2021
• Being a CEO is a deadly affair, MarketWatch - 03/15/2021
• How Biases Influence CEOs Throughout Their Careers, Knowledge@Wharton - 02/23/2021
• Interview on Life Cycle of a CEO Career, Wharton on SiriusXM - 02/03/2021
• Behavioral Corporate Finance: The Life Cycle of a CEO Career, Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance - 12/04/2020
• Stress Marks, Berkeley Haas Magazine - 12/01/2020
• Interview on CEO Stress, Aging, and Death, Wharton on SiriusXM - 10/29/2020
• Job stress takes a heavy toll on CEO lifespans, Newswise - 10/06/2020
• Can the Stress of Being the Boss Make You Age Faster?, Quartz - 09/22/2020
• Recessions reduce managers’ life expectancy, FAZ - 08/13/2020
• Shareholder activism is basically murder, Bloomberg - 08/03/2020
• CEO stress, aging, and death, Marginal Revolution - 08/02/2020

Knowledge at Wharton

• How Sunk Costs Affect Firms’ Investment Decisions, Knowledge at Wharton - 1/23/2023
• Corporate Sunk Costs: What is Their Impact on a Company’s Bottomline?, Knowledge at Wharton - 11/16/2022
• How Stress Affects CEO Aging and Mortality, Knowledge at Wharton - 9/28/2021
• How Biases Influence CEOs Throughout Their Careers, Knowledge at Wharton - 2/23/2021

Wharton Stories

• Get to Know the 20 New Faculty Members Joining Wharton This Year, Wharton Stories - 08/17/2020