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
| Modeling Behavioral Biases in Economics and Finance | |
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| Organizer | Aarhus University |
| Instructor | Simon Gervais (Duke University) |
| Dates | April 13-17, 2026 |
| Place | Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark |
| Information | In the last two decades, economics and finance have witnessed a shift from the rational paradigm towards one that incorporates the possibility that the actions of economic actors are influenced by various behavioral biases documented in psychology. In particular, studies of the calibration of subjective probabilities find that individuals are overconfident: they tend to overestimate the precision of their knowledge and information, as well as their ability to improve outcomes. The principal objective of this course is to provide students with a theoretical framework to model such behavioral biases, and to study their impact on financial markets and firms. By relating the theoretical approaches to other non-behavioral theories, the course will also introduce students to classic models in economics and finance. Indeed, the course will start with a brief introduction to models of financial markets, and will successively look at a variety of topics into which some form of biased decision-making is incorporated. More information on the course website. |
| Applications | Please register for the course via the registration link that can be found on the course page. The deadline for registrations is April 2, 2026. |
| Travel Grant | NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of Denmark. See instructions at the top of the page. |
| 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 Finance: Identification Strategies in Corporate Finance | |
|---|---|
| Organizer | Copenhagen Business School |
| Instructor | Kasper Meisner Nielsen (Copenhagen Business School) |
| Dates | May 6-7, 2026 |
| Place | Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark |
| Information | The aim of the class is to introduce PhD students in finance and related fields to identification strategies in corporate finance. The course is designed to provide an introduction to some of the empirical methods used to identify causal effects in corporate finance. We will examine how to estimate causal effects in the presence of potentially unobserved confounding factors and how to make proper statistical inference about empirical estimates. The goal of the course is to provide PhD students with a methodological framework that will enhance their ability to design sound identification strategies in the area of corporate finance. More information on the course page |
| Applications | Registration deadline is March 23, 2026. Link to registration can be found on the course website. Course fee is waived for NFN students. |
| Travel Grant | NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of Denmark. 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. |
| Machine Learning for Asset Pricing | |
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| Organizer | Swedish House of Finance, Stockholm School of Economics |
| Instructor | Semyon Malamud (EPFL) |
| Dates | June 8-12, 2026 |
| Place | Swedish House of Finance, Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm, Sweden |
| Information | TBA More information will be updated on the course page |
| Applications | Please register in advance with the Department Administrator Kirandeep Saini (Kirandeep.Saini(@)hhs.se). Registration deadline TBA. |
| Travel Grant | NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of Sweden. See instructions at the top of the page. |
| The Social Value of Financial-Market Information | |
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| Organizer | Aarhus University |
| Instructor | Philip Bond (University of Washington) |
| Dates | August 5-7, 2026 |
| Place | Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark |
| Information | TBA |
| Applications | TBA |
| Travel Grant | NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of Denmark. See instructions at the top of the page. |
| Finance and Growth: The Roles of Financial Development, Institutions, and Shareholder Primacy | |
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| 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. More information on the course page |
| Applications | Please see course website for instructions. The deadline for applications is August 2, 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. |
| 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. |