RSM’s department of Finance is dynamic and international. "We are a meeting place for ambitious academics and dedicated educators in the field of corporate finance and investments," says Marno Verbeek, Department Chair. "As a group we collectively manage one of the School's largest master programmes, engage in top quality research, and organise high-quality specialised conferences."

The RSM Finance Group is dynamic and international. We do high quality research that is published in top-tier journals and has both academic and practical impact. We provide a demanding MSc programme in Finance and Investments to prepare future leaders in business and finance.

Marno Verbeek, Department Chair

Portrait of Marno Verbeek

A circle of experts

RSM Finance is part of the Erasmus Finance Group, which includes faculty from the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam. "We address a wide variety of areas – research into corporate finance, the predictability of stock returns, asset management, sustainable finance, credit risk, financial innovation, FinTech, entrepreneurial finance and corporate governance, among others," says Professor Verbeek. "Our research focuses on generating new insights that enable people and organisations to thrive. We co-operate with the industry and other stakeholders on topics such as sustainable finance, climate risk and financial regulation, and we share our latest research with each other during our weekly Brown Bag Seminars – it's inspiring to work as a community of finance!" 

Weekly seminars

"The Erasmus Finance Group has an outstanding weekly seminar series that can compete with those from the best business schools in the world," says Professor Verbeek. Such speakers as Jonathan Berk (Stanford), Maureen O’Hara (Cornell), Ulrike Malmendier (University of California Berkeley) and Antoinette Schoar (MIT), present each week to an audience that includes faculty and PhD researchers. 

Annual conferences 

The group also organises highly visible academic conferences each year, including the Professional Asset Management and Erasmus Liquidity series, which feature renowned international keynote speakers. "As a group, RSM Finance is proud of the quality of our research, our programmes, and the renowned finance scholars who like to visit, teach and learn with us," says Professor Verbeek.

About RSM’s Department of Finance

Publications

2024

  • Heilmann, C., Szymanowska, M., & Vergara Fernandez, M. (2024). Financial Economics: What Kind of Science Is It? In J. Sandberg, & L. Warenski (Eds.), The Philosophy of Money and Finance (pp. 111-128). https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780192898807.003.0007
  • Roor, A., & Maas, K. (Accepted/In press). Do impact investors live up to their promise? A systematic literature review on (im)proving investments' impacts. Business Strategy and the Environment. https://doi.org/10.1002/bse.3644
  • Fisar, M., Greiner, B., Huber, C., Katok, E., Ozkes, A. I., & the Management Science Reproducibility Collaboration (2024). Reproducibility in Management Science. Management Science, 70(3), 1343–1356. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.03556
  • Dottling, R., & Kim, S. (2024). Sustainability Preferences Under Stress: Evidence from COVID-19. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 59(2), 435-473. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022109022001296
  • de Arriba - Sellier, N. (Accepted/In press). Confronter la Tempête à Venir : La Supervision des Risques Climatiques et Environnementaux par la BCE. Revue des Affaires Européennes – Law & European Affairs, 2023(3).
  • de Adelhart Toorop, R., Schoenmaker, D., & Schramade, W. (2024). Decision Rules for Corporate Investment †. International Journal of Financial Studies, 12(1), Article 24. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijfs12010024
  • Becker, B., Campello, M., Thell, V., & Yan, D. (Accepted/In press). Credit Risk, Debt Overhang, and the Life Cycle of Callable Bonds. Review of Finance. https://doi.org/10.1093/rof/rfae001
  • Bartels, J., & Schramade, W. (2024). Investing in human rights: overcoming the human rights data problem. Journal of Sustainable Finance and Investment, 14(1), 199-219. https://doi.org/10.1080/20430795.2022.2053943
  • Ahmad, M. F., Aktas, N., Cumming, D., & Xu, G. (2024). Board reforms and M&A performance: international evidence. Journal of International Business Studies. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-023-00674-3

2023

Research

Research of the Department of Finance deals with two main focal areas:

  • Corporate Finance which studies investments and financing decisions within the firm. 
  • Investments which concentrates on the mechanics of financial markets and investments in stocks, bonds, and derivatives, among other vehicles.

Centres, Projects, and Experts

High-profile and relevant research is constantly being developed by Finance Department faculty members who connect to ERIM through its F&A research programme. These scholars share their knowledge through a variety of initiatives, including Centres of Expertise. Support for their research may come from companies, the European Government, grants or other forms of sponsorship. 

Some notable Centres of Expertise associated with the Finance Department:

The purpose of this platform is to develop new insights through research and education in close collaboration with leading sustainable finance players in the industry and academia. The platform brings together academic faculty research, PhD, Master and Bachelor students, MBAs and executive education, NGOs and professionals in the financial industry.

Read the archive of our departmental news spanning from the year 2008 all the way through 2024.

Faculty

View our faculty overview:

Education

The Department of Finance contributes to the curriculum of both the Bachelor of Science in International Business Administration programme and the Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (in Dutch “Bedrijfskunde”) programmes. The department provides courses in corporate finance and investments. 

In the third year of the BSc programmes, the department contributes to the Performance Analysts track and the Financial Strategists track, with courses on Portfolio Management, Non-Financial Performance, Financial Strategy, and Risk and Assurance.  

In addition to these courses, we also offer minors and electives on Corporate Finance, Alternative Investments, Sustainable Finance, Household Finance, Banking and Financial Intermediation.  

The MSc in Finance and Investments concentrates on a wide variety of questions facing financial specialists. The programme focuses on financial decision-making from a management perspective. You will acquire state-of-the-art knowledge and hands-on experience in one of the most dynamic business areas. 

The MSc in Finance and Investments offers you a wide variety of topics in the field of finance and investments. Typical challenges relate to financial decisions that companies and investors have to make. 

Talented young researchers get the opportunity to do pioneering and innovative PhD research at ERIM, a top research institute in Europe. In its PhD programme in Management, ERIM offers PhD candidates personal supervision by internationally acclaimed management researchers and excellent research facilities, including a state-of-the-art behavioural lab and advanced survey technology. In addition, a special support programme pays for research expenses like conference visits, international research visits, and data collection. All ERIM’s PhD students are paid a competitive salary and receive career development support. 

Research events

Each year, we host several international conferences with speakers and discussants from a wide variety of schools and locations. The 10th Erasmus Liquidity Conference will take place on June 13 and 14, 2024.

PhD Placement

Read more about our PhD Placements:

Departmental news

December 2023

  • The paper ‘Reproducibility in Management Science’ by Thomas Lambert, Marta Szymanowska, and Dion Bogaerts (co-authored by 700+) has been published in Management Science.
  • Arjen Mulder has won the RSM Teaching Innovation Award.

November 2023

  • Guosong Xu's paper "Board reforms and M&A performance: International evidence" (co-authored by Nihat Aktas, Douglas Cumming and, Ahmad Farooq) has been accepted for publication in the Journal of International Business Studies. 

June 2023

  • Arjen Mulder has won the Best Professor of the Year Award for his Finance course in the first year of the Bachelor in International Business Administration.
  • Florian Madertoner has won the Best Professor of the Year Award for his Corporate Finance course in the second year of the Bachelor in International Business Administration.
  • The paper ‘Ownership Concentration and Firm Value: New Evidence from Owner Stakes in IPOs’ by Peter Roosenboom (co-authored by Borja Larrain, Giorgo Sertsios, and Francisco Urzua Infante) has been accepted for publication in Management Science. 
  • Francesco Mazzola has won the Best Paper Award in Memory of Radha Gopalan at the Finest 2023 Spring Workshop for his paper ‘Sharing SME Cash Flow Data’.
  • Francesco Mazzola has won the 10th SUERF/UniCredit Foundation Prize for his paper ‘Electronic Foreclosures’.
  • The paper ‘Non-Standard Errors’ co-authored by Wolf Wagner, Mathijs van Dijk, and Francesco Mazzola has been accepted in The Journal of Finance. 
  • Mancy Luo's paper ‘Political Ideology and International Capital Allocation’ (co-authored with Elisabeth Kempf, Larissa Schaefer, and Margarita Tsoutsoura) has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Financial Economics.
  • Dion Bongaerts was appointed Full Professor in Financial Technology and Data Analytics. His research and teaching interests lie in the behavior of credit rating agencies, the pricing of credit risky instruments, the origins and effects of market illiquidity, and FinTech (with a focus on Blockchain and AI). Dion holds a Ph.D. degree in Finance from the University of Amsterdam.
  • Dong Yan starts as an Associate Professor at RSM's Finance Department. Dong has a Ph.D. in Finance from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Her research and teaching interests include corporate investment, the real effects of financial markets, private firms, internal capital markets, and M&A.
  • Andreas Brøgger starts as an Assistant Professor at RSM's Finance Department. Andreas has a Ph.D. in Finance from Copenhagen Business School. His research and teaching interests are in Asset Pricing, Asset Management, and Sustainable Finance.
  • Ran Guo starts as a Lecturer at RSM's Finance Department. 
  • Reinier de Adelhart Toorop starts as a Part-Time Lecturer at RSM's Finance Department. Reinier holds a Ph.D. in Theoretical Particle Physics from Leiden University. His teaching interests are in Sustainable Finance.  
  • Nathan de Arriba Sellier joins RSM's Finance Department, partly as director of the Platform on Sustainable Value Creation and partly as a researcher within the department. He is working to bolster the research center, advance its research agenda, and maximize the impact of the novel methods and ideas that support the transition to a sustainable economic and financial system. Nathan holds a Ph.D. in law from Leiden University & Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Contact us

Department of Finance is located in Mandeville (T) building on Woudestein campus, Erasmus University Rotterdam. You can find the campus map here.

Visiting Address

Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University
Department of Finance
Mandeville (T) Building, Room 08-25
Burgemeester Oudlaan 50
3062 PA Rotterdam
The Netherlands

Postal Address

P.O. Box 1738
3000 DR Rotterdam
The Netherlands

Sustainable Finance

Get to know Erasmus Platform for Sustainable Value Creation

RSM Discovery

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