This seminar examines the impact of taxes on security values and investment strategies. The readings and discussion will focus on a variety of instruments including equities, bonds, and various derivative instruments. The seminar incorporates three perspectives on the ensuing tax and finance issues: (1) a planning or "trading strategy" perspective - appropriate for advising investors; (2) a market perspective - especially the impact of taxes on security prices; and, (3) a tax policy perspective - focusing on the government's choice of rules.
The seminar also devotes time to some methodological issues that arise from each perspective.
Although there are no formal prerequisites, knowledge of finance at a basic graduate or MBA level is assumed. Some of the material relies on continuous time modeling, but a deep knowledge of this type of modeling is not required.