Double Degree in Finance
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Fall and Spring, 2009/2010
1. Academic Information:
General Information about the school:
The school is based in the Ciutadella area, close to Arc de Trumph, the Zoo and the Beach. The school
is relatively modern but cannot be compared to the facilities of BI. The library is big, but in the examperiods one has to be there early in order to get a seat. One should be aware that the printer system
can be a bit annoying.
The Teaching situation:
The undergraduate-courses are taught in English, Spanish and Catalan, but the graduate-courses are
taught in English only. Most of the lectures are 2 hours 2 times a week, and often a TA-session of 1
hour. In the TA-session the teaching assistant (TA) goes through the weekly problem set (which most
of the courses have). The level of the TA may vary. Beside some courses, the technical level of the
courses is very high, which mean that one should have very good mathematical skills. On the other
hand, the amount to read is not that heavy. Some of the professors are maybe in the top of the
world with regards to their subject, although this may vary. They are very friendly and helpful.
Required literature:
The courses are often based on articles and some chapters from different books. Before one buy a
book it could be wise to search the library and copy the book instead of buying it. This is very
common in Spain. The bookstore at the school (or any bookstore in Barcelona) doesn’t sell any
English books; hence one has to order from Amazon. It is seldom the case that the literature one has
to read is heavy, and it is often the case that the lecture slides is sufficient with regards to the exam.
Exams and evaluation:
When it comes to grading and exams most courses consist of a final exam and process evaluation
during the course which can be presentations or problem sets to be handed in (or both). The final
exam is most often 2 hours and can be quite extensive. The grading system is based on a scale from 1
to 10 were you pass on grades higher than 5 (which corresponds to a C). Some courses seem to offer
retakes in January.
Description of the Courses (only courses from the fall):
Course name:
Credits:
Lecturers:
Teaching Level:
Student name:
International Economic History
(4.8 ECTS)
Enriquetta Champs
Very Easy
Stian Abrahamsen
This is a course on the undergraduate level and a very popular course among Erasmus students. The
course is about how the world economy has developed from the 14th century and up until today. The
course is very easy, but it the reading amount is heavy, although the articles are not that difficult.
20% of the final grade is based on a group presentation, and the last 80% is based on a final 2 hour
exam.
The workload is of this course is not heavy, and one can question what you can use the content of
the course later. On the other hand, one can describe the course as a “fun-facts”-course. It is easy
ECTS, and it allows you to easy meet other Erasmus students.
Based on the academics of the course I would not recommend it. But if one want to meet other
exchange students I would recommend the course.
Course name:
Credits:
Lecturers:
Teaching level:
Student name:
Macroeconomics 1
4,8 ECTS
Antonio Ciccone (+TA)
Medium to hard
Tobias W. Balchen
This was a interesting macro course which covered long-term growth models (the Solow-model and
the Ramsey-Cass-Koopman model). The course had a quite large work load with one problem set to
be handed in each week (we used about 1 day per set), but there was not much to read in addition.
We also had one TA-session each week in which we went through the problem sets. Antonio Ciccone
was our teacher in the course and he was very good; he explained the material thoroughly and in an
easy to understand manner. I would recommend this course to student interested in intermediate
macro-economics.
Course name:
Credits:
Lecturers:
Teaching Level:
Student name:
Stochastic Processes
(5 ECTS)
Omiros Papaspiliopoulos
Very Hard
Christopher Fink
The course Stochastic Processes is offered by the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics.
The course is all about stochastic processes and their application in economics and finance. In the
first part of the course you will learn foundations of rigorous probability theory (probability spaces,
random variables, independence, expectation, conditional expectation, convergence of sequences of
random variables). In the second part you will learn something about martingales (definitions,
stopping times, optimal stopping and convergence). In third part of the course the theory is applied
to finance, economics and econometrics, e.g. in option pricing.
The teaching level of this course is very hard. In the first weeks of the course I personally haven’t
understood anything of the content. Omiros teaches the first weeks on very dry and abstract level.
He basically gives no applications of the taught concepts, all he gives is mathematical proofs. This is
part of his concept, as he also wants to convey mathematical skills and techniques. For the first
weeks I recommend you to have a lot of patience and endurance and the willingness to cope with
mathematical proofs and abstract concepts.
The last weeks of the course were more understandable and one learns how to apply the
mathematical theories and concepts learned in the first part of the course. The applications in the
last part of the course really help to understand the first part and the other way around.
For this course we had to deliver a project on option pricing and martingales that counted 30%
towards the final grade and a final exam.
Although this course was very hard, I would recommend it to any student wanting to get an insight
into the world of stochastic processes. The concepts taught are very difficult and mathematical but
by the end of the day, if you have proven the necessary endurance, you have acquired valuable
mathematical skills and techniques as well as stochastical knowledge that help you to understand
main concepts of mathematical finance, economics and econometrics.
Course name:
Credits:
Lecturers:
Teaching Level:
Student name:
Statistics and Econometrics
(7.5 ECTS)
Kurt Schmidheiny and Vasco Carvalho
Hard
Sarmad Mehrnawaz
The Barcelona Graduate School of Economics offers this course. We chose this course because it
covers interesting econometric topics, and teaches statistical methods relevant for the Master’s
Thesis. The course is divided into two parts; (i) Microeconometrics (40 hours) covered by
Schmidheiny; and (ii) Time Series Econometrics (20 hours) covered by Carvalho.
The teaching level is hard. Personally, I feel that one needs a relatively high mathematical and
statistical background to keep pace with what is taught. For instance, lectures from both parts of the
course are comprised of rigorous mathematical proofs of properties of various statistical estimates
e.g., the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) estimator, the Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimator, Panel Data
estimators, Two-Stage Least Squares (TSLS) estimator, Moving Average (MA) and Autoregressive (AR)
estimation procedures. Furthermore, mandatory weekly home assignments consisting of case
applications and theoretical mathematical proofs are given. In short, the student needs to be very
hard working and posses a good deal of mathematical skills. In addition, the student is required to
learn the statistical software STATA by himself (outside the classroom).
The professors are very skilled in their teaching. Although, the lectures are mainly quantitative and
based on mathematical proofs, you understand the main message conveyed by them; namely the
purpose of the methods examined, and how they can be applied.
The exam we had was divided into two parts, where each part corresponded to what was taught by
each professor. The exam is based on multiple-choice questions, STATA output interpretations, and
several questions dealing with the properties of the statistical estimators (see above paragraph for all
estimators). The exam counts for 80%. The remaining 20% are distributed on the weekly problem
sets that are mandatory (one problem set each week).
Although this course was very hard, I would recommend it to any student wanting to get an insight
into the statistical world. By the end of the day, you possess valuable knowledge that can be applied
to any thesis that makes use of quantitative methods.
2. Practical Information and Living in Barcelona
Housing:
The private market in Barcelona offers a wide variety of apartments and rooms, but it could also be
difficult to navigate (very few speak English). So we used instead something called Barcelona Housing
Service for Students (http://www.bcn-housing-students.com) which was very good. You should
register online in order to get a priority number for the apartments. The agency has a lot of flats and
they offer standard terms in their contract (no fine print) and they take a service charge of 50 Euro.
We had a very good experience with them; they were helpful and proficient in English. Expect to pay
about the same as in Oslo (maybe slightly less). You should also note that the housing standards are
not like in Norway, so don’t be too picky. We found it most convenient just to book into a hotel for
one week while we search for apartments.
Costs:
The cost of living in Barcelona is much cheaper than in Norway, except for housing which as
mentioned is about the same level. Expect to use much less money on food. When it comes to mobil
phones we got a subscription with a company called The Brigth Co (http://www.thebrightco.com)
which was very cheap to use (also international calls)
International office:
The school has an international office called OMA (Mobility and Welcome Offices). This is situated at
the Ciutadella campus in the Jamue I building. They can help you with everything from course
registration to general information about Barcelona.
Social activities:
Barcelona is a large city with activities to suit any, it has many large beaches, good restaurants and
off course a very good night life. There are also many nice sights in and around the city.
Other:
To be able a bank account one has to have a so-called NIE number. To get this one has to go down at
the police station close to the beach. The cost of this is 20 euros (I think and has to be paid in cash). I
would recommend doing this straight away since the line there can be very long when the semester
starts. With this NIE number one is also able to get access to the city bicycles which is a very cheap an
easy way of getting around the city. The “bicing” office is located near the La Rambla.
For any question send an e-mail:
Stian Abrahamsen – stian.abrahamsen@student.bi.no
Tobias Balchen – tobiaswb@hotmail.com