MBA in Finance

Finance is a field that deals with the allocation of assets and liabilities over time under conditions of certainty and uncertainty. Finance also applies and uses the theories of economics at some level. Finance can also be defined as the science of money management. A key point in finance is the time value of money, which states that purchasing power of one unit of currency can vary over time. Finance aims to price assets based on their risk level and their expected rate of return. Finance can be broken into three different sub-categories: public finance, corporate finance and personal finance.

Areas of Finance

There are many areas of finance to consider when choosing a career in finance. You could go with personal finance, corporate finance, public finance and economics. Below we have summarized some financial career paths obtainable after graduating with an MBA.

Personal Finance

Personal finance is the financial management which an individual or a family unit is required to do to obtain, budget, save, and spend monetary resources over time, taking into account various financial risks and future life events.[1] When planning personal finances the individual would consider the suitability to his or her needs of a range of banking products (checking, savings accounts, credit cards and consumer loans) or investment (stock market, bonds, mutual funds) and insurance (life insurance, health insurance, disability insurance) products or participation and monitoring of individual- or employer-sponsored retirement plans, social security benefits, and income tax management.

Corporate Finance

Corporate finance is the area of finance dealing with the sources of funding and the capital structure of corporations and the actions that managers take to increase the value of the firm to the shareholders, as well as the tools and analysis used to allocate financial resources. The primary goal of corporate finance is to maximize or increase shareholder value.[1] Although it is in principle different from managerial finance which studies the financial management of all firms, rather than corporations alone, the main concepts in the study of corporate finance are applicable to the financial problems of all kinds of firms.

Financial Services

Financial services are the economic services provided by the finance industry, which encompasses a broad range of organizations that manage money, including credit unions, banks, credit card companies, insurance companies, accountancy companies, consumer finance companies, stock brokerages, investment funds, real estate funds and some government sponsored enterprises.

Public Finances

Public finance is the study of the role of the government in the economy.[1] It is the branch of economics which assesses the government revenue and government expenditure of the public authorities and the adjustment of one or the other to achieve desirable effects and avoid undesirable ones.[2]

The purview of public finance is considered to be threefold: governmental effects on (1) efficient allocation of resources, (2) distribution of income, and (3) macroeconomic stabilization.

Economics

Economics is the social science that studies economic activity to gain an understanding of the processes that govern the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services in an economy.

The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek οἰκονομία from οἶκος (oikos, "house") and νόμος (nomos, "custom" or "law"), hence "rules of the house (hold for good management)".[1] 'Political economy' was the earlier name for the subject, but economists in the late 19th century suggested "economics" as a shorter term for "economic science" to establish itself as a separate discipline outside of political science and other social sciences.[2]

Economics focuses on the behavior and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Consistent with this focus, primary textbooks often distinguish between microeconomics and macroeconomics. Microeconomics examines the behavior of basic elements in the economy, including individual agents and markets, their interactions, and the outcomes of interactions. Individual agents may include, for example, households, firms, buyers, and sellers. Macroeconomics analyzes the entire economy (meaning aggregated production, consumption, savings, and investment) and issues affecting it, including unemployment of resources (labor, capital, and land), inflation, economic growth, and the public policies that address these issues (monetary, fiscal, and other policies).