Howard Kaufold

Howard Kaufold is Vice Dean of the MBA Program, and Adjunct Professor of Finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.  Before becoming Vice Dean, he served as Deputy Vice Dean of the MBA Program for Executives, and earlier as an Associate Director of Wharton’s fulltime MBA program.

He earned his BS in Economics from the Wharton School, and completed his PhD in Economics at Princeton University. His published papers have dealt with valuing leveraged buyouts and recapitalizations, hedging interest and exchange rate risk of foreign bonds, and the interest rate risk of floating rate notes.

Dr. Kaufold has taught in executive education programs for such corporations as DuPont, General Electric, Merck, and Nomura. He has taught Corporate Finance in the MBA core since 1983, and has twice been awarded Wharton’s Anvil Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Past Courses

FNCE611 CORPORATE FINANCE

This course serves as an introduction to business finance (corporate financial management and investments) for both nonmajors and majors preparing for upperlevel 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.

FNCE899 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. At a minimum, we need a description of the methodology you intend to employ, a bibliography and description of the data that you will use as well as a list of interim deliverables and dates to ensure that you complete the project within the semester. Applications for FNCE 899 ISP's will not be accepted after the THIRD WEEK OF THE SEMESTER. You must submit your Finance ISP request using the Finance Department's ISP form located at https://fnce.wharton.upenn.edu under the Course ISP section