On the technological side, with the advent of networks, the definition of a computer itself is being changed. In addition, on the financial side, the investment in IT is typically significant. The course is based on the idea of economic time, recipient of the 1992 Pacific Telesis Award for best thinking in management. Also studied are markets where intellectual capital is central, trends in outsourcing, multi-product considerations, and an overview of trends in corporate restructuring. The course is designed to prepare students for managing the newer competitive forces in the economy.
Popular examples are futures, options and swaps.
The existence of derivative can be traced back as far as the agrarian economies of the Middle Ages, where futures type arrangements were commonplace between farmers and landowners. However, it is only since the early 1970 s that derivatives have seen widespread use in modern financial markets. The subsequent explosion in derivatives trading can be traced to two important developments. The CBOT s role in standardizing options contracts and diversifying counterparty risk played a major role in making options an attractive financial instrument for a number of different end-users of financial markets. Secondly, in 1972 Fisher Black and Myron Scholes, two academic financial economists, made a key theoretical breakthrough in option valuation which enabled the risk inherent in a portfolio of options to be managed in a systematic way.