Courses
Courses and workshops organized within the NFN are open to finance PhD students and faculty from all Nordic universities or business schools irrespective of whether their home institution is a member of the NFN.
NFN Travel Grant
The NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of the country where a given course takes place. To apply for the Travel Grant, please use the form below and send it to the NFN office at nfn (@) aalto.fi. Remember to ask your supervisor to also send a short recommendation email. Please send the application well in advance to make sure that the NFN office has time to process your application and you have a chance to ensure the cheapest tickets available.
Past Courses
You can consult a list of past courses here
Forthcoming Courses
| Transforming Economic and Financial Research with AI | |
|---|---|
| Organizer | Graduate School of Finance / Aalto University |
| Instructor | Ingar Haaland (Norwegian School of Economics) |
| Dates | May 4-8, 2026 |
| Place | Aalto University School of Business, Espoo, Finland |
| Information | This doctoral course will give an introduction to how recent advances in generative AI are reshaping research in economics and finance. During the course, we will cover how to integrate AI in your own research, discuss applications in some recent prominent papers within economics and finance, learn how to leverage LLMs at scale using the API, and brainstorm about ideas on how to integrate AI in your own research with structured group discussions. |
| Applications | Please see course website for instructions. The deadline for applications is April 12, 2026. |
| Travel Grant | NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of Finland. See instructions at the top of the page. |
| Empirical Corporate Finance | |
|---|---|
| Organizer | Graduate School of Finance / Aalto University |
| Instructor | Renée Adams (Saïd Business School, University of Oxford) |
| Dates | May 12-16, 2026 |
| Place | Aalto University School of Business, Espoo, Finland |
| Information | This course offers a doctoral level introduction to Empirical Corporate Finance and aims to prepare doctoral students to do research on their own in this field. More information on the course page |
| Applications | Please see course website for instructions. The deadline for applications is April 26, 2026. |
| Travel Grant | NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of Finland. See instructions at the top of the page. |
| Behavioral Finance | |
|---|---|
| Organizer | Graduate School of Finance / Aalto University |
| Instructor | Markku Kaustia (Aalto University) |
| Dates | June 8-12, 2026 |
| Place | Aalto University School of Business, Espoo, Finland |
| Information | Behavioral Finance is an approach to the analysis of asset prices, corporate finance, and financial decision-making in general, that relaxes some key assumptions of neoclassical financial economics. Namely, it considers a larger class of objective functions, not always compatible with expected utility. Second, it entertains the possibility that expectations are sometimes biased, and not updated in a Bayesian manner. Third, it considers how various financial market frictions can form strong ‘limits to arbitrage’. This course is designed to introduce doctoral students to these concepts, and to support them in developing behavioral research ideas of their own. Course page TBA |
| Applications | TBA |
| Travel Grant | NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of Finland. See instructions at the top of the page. |
| Finance and Growth: The Roles of Financial Development, Institutions, and Shareholder Primacy | |
|---|---|
| Organizer | Graduate School of Finance / Aalto University |
| Instructor | David McLean (Georgetown University) |
| Dates | August 12-14, 2026 |
| Place | Aalto University School of Business, Espoo, Finland |
| Information | This course explores the links between finance, law, and economic growth. We begin by asking whether finance causes economic growth, and then turn to the law and finance literature on how legal institutions shape financial development. Finally, we examine shareholder capitalism—the idea that firms should maximize shareholder value—and its implications for investment, innovation, and the broader economy, connecting it back to both the finance-growth and law-and-finance literatures. Course page TBA |
| Applications | TBA |
| Travel Grant | NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of Finland. See instructions at the top of the page. |
| Banking Regulation, Supervision and Financial Stability | |
|---|---|
| Organizer | Graduate School of Finance / Aalto University |
| Instructor | Thorsten Beck (Florence School of Banking and Finance and European University Institute) |
| Dates | August 26-28, 2026 |
| Place | Aalto University School of Business, Espoo, Finland |
| Information | TBA |
| Applications | TBA |
| Travel Grant | NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of Finland. See instructions at the top of the page. |