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Climate change might be the defining challenge of our times, with a wide range of effects on financial markets and the broader economy. At the same time, financial markets play an important role in financing the transition to a net-zero economy, and incentivizing firms and investors to adapt their strategies. In this course, we examine how climate risks—both physical and regulatory—affect firms, financial markets (including equity, corporate debt, green bonds, municipal bonds, insurance, and carbon markets), and markets for energy, real estate and mortgages. We also examine the role that firms’ disclosures and third-party information sources play. Because financial markets are shaped by the information that is available to market participants, we investigate the impact of ESG reporting and rating agencies, including the costs and benefits of regulating ESG reporting and the impact of greenwashing. In the second part of the course, we study how governments and private investors finance investments in climate technologies. Here, we discuss various financial instruments that have been developed to address climate-change concerns. Given the enormous importance of electrification as a pathway towards a low-carbon future, there is special emphasis on renewable energy finance and economics. We also discuss the latest evidence of how climate risk has shaped decisions inside organizations, such as spin-offs, hedging, and the structure of executive-compensation contracts. 

1 Course Unit

Multiple class sections
Prof. Arthur van Benthem and Prof Mirko Heinle 

Climate change represents one of the most urgent threats to humanity’s future. Transforming the global economy to manage this threat will require trillions of dollars in capital, creating unprecedented risks as well as opportunities in financial markets. This course uses the tools of financial economics to understand strategies for managing risks and financing climate technologies across a range of asset classes, including carbon markets, project finance, venture capital, private equity, public equities, fixed income, and real assets. Students will also explore how financing strategies interact with public policy and political risk in both the developed and emerging market contexts. The course concludes with debates on corporate purpose, including what role businesses and financial institutions should play in addressing climate change. 

1 Course Unit

Multiple class sections
Prof. Parinitha Sastry 

This course is a multidisciplinary, interactive study of business ethics within a global economy. A central aim of the course is to enable students to develop a framework to address ethical challenges as they arise within and across different countries. Alternative theories about acting ethically in global environments are presented, and critical current issues are introduced and analyzed. Examples include bribery, global sourcing, environmental sustainability, social reports, intellectual property, e-commerce, and dealing with conflicting standards and values across cultures. As part of this study, the course considers non-Western ethical traditions and practices as they relate to business. 

1 Course Unit

MW 5:15-6:44 pm
Prof. Brian Berkey 

This half-credit (.5 cu) course presents students with the opportunity to explore an alternative perspective to what some might consider the traditional or standard model of business. A starting point of the course is to ask whether business firms owe a “social responsibility” that includes, but goes beyond, maximizing profits. The course begins with overarching questions including to whom a business firm owes legal and ethical duties, how to balance or trade-off obligations owed to different stakeholders when they may conflict, and how to consider the distributional and other socially important implications of business decisions. Different sections of this course will examine questions about the responsibility of business toward a number of pressing environmental and social issues, including for example, climate change, fresh water availability, green marketing claims, democratic values, racial and gender diversity, human rights, poverty reduction, and global health issues such as access to medicine. These topics will be treated primarily through the lenses of law and ethics. Please consult individual instructors’ syllabi in the Wharton syllabus repository for further details on what will be covered in each individual section, and please note that topics change over time and in response to student and faculty interests. Finally, students should expect to prepare and present in groups to colleagues in classes on selected issues of business responsibility. This course fulfills the MBA Flex Core requirement in Legal Studies and Business Ethics. 

0.5 Course Unit

TR 10:15-11:44 am
Prof. Eric Orts 

The financial significance of stakeholder opinions of the acceptability of a firm’s operations and geopolitical risk is mounting, yet the data, frameworks, and tools informing investors, consultants, and corporates are unreliable. The course provides students with novel data, frameworks, and tools that can link and aid in the alignment of stakeholder opinions of corporate impact on natural, social, and human capitals, financial valuation, strategy, and sustainable business. Estimates of the capital expenditures necessary to achieve a net-zero emissions and the 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming target exceed $50 Trillion over the next 30 years. The cost of inaction is, however, much higher, with $10-$25 Trillion dollars in annual losses forecast for GDP from the physical risks of climate change alone. Despite this simple financial calculus, we continue to debate whether climate change is real, and whether policies to achieve a climate transition are justified, and whether the allocation of the costs necessary to do so is fair.  Such discussions are made more difficult by the reemergence of geopolitical rivalries between great powers as well as the strengthening of political divisions within many countries. Populism, nationalism, and nativism have moved from the fringes of political systems to the corridors of power. These international and national forces have led to a pause in globalization and increasingly threaten global growth. Which firms or investors are best poised to navigate these risks and seize related opportunities? This course provides students the latest tools to assess and map stakeholder opinions as well as integrate them into financial valuation. It also offers behavioral skills critical for external stakeholder engagement including communications as well as for the engagement of stakeholders inside the firm. In short, it prepares students to engage in geostrategy.

1 Course Unit

Multiple class sections
Prof. Witold Henisz 

Learn the skills to navigate difficult conversations that arise in personal and professional settings. Whether it’s resolving team conflicts, giving constructive feedback, repairing a rift at work or at home, or addressing tough organizational challenges, this course equips you with the tools to communicate effectively and build stronger relationships. You’ll explore key concepts, strategies, and research on managing emotional triggers and handling high-stakes conversations. Through readings, discussions, and role-playing exercises, you’ll gain confidence in identifying what makes conversations succeed or fail, preparing for tough talks, and improving your ability to foster positive outcomes in work, relationships, and communities. 

0.5 Course Unit

Multiple class sections
Prof. Katherine Klein 

This course seeks to address a gap at the core of contemporary entrepreneurship: despite a growing desire to pursue prosocial goals and affect positive change in the world, most founders have little understanding of how to measure, manage, and scale their impact. This creates the risk that financial goals will play an outsized role in decision-making, particularly as the venture scales, leading founders to drift away from social impact aims – or to pursue goals that fail to deliver on their intended impacts. MGMT 4010 fulfils the Wharton capstone requirement with a hands-on approach to addressing these issues. Students will work hand-in-hand with the founding teams of pre-selected startups from the Wharton venture community to develop a strategy for measuring social impact, and ensuring fidelity to social goals as the venture goes to market and begins to scale. Projects will be group-based, and will ask students to integrate learnings on social enterprise, impact measurement, and impact investing, with prior coursework on entrepreneurship, social impact, business ethics, leadership, team dynamics, and venture finance. Students will leave the class with a deeper appreciation of the potential for business to be a force for good in the world, and the difficulties that this can pose during the founding and growth stages of a new business. The class will be of value to students who are interested in creating socially impactful businesses, as well as to those who want to work in the ecosystem that supports such ventures (e.g., consulting, or impact investing). 

WH UG Capstone 

0.5 Course Unit

TR 10:15-11:44 am (3/5-4/29)
Prof. Tyler Wry 

This course examines the relationships between corporate managers, the boards of directors charged with overseeing them, and investors. We’ll review the responsibilities of the board, including financial statement approval, CEO performance assessment, executive compensation, and succession planning. While boards are legally bound to represent the interests of equity investors, in the course of carrying out this role they are often called on to respond to the needs of numerous other stakeholders, including customers, employees, government and society at large. With global brands at risk and mistakes instantly transmitted via Internet and social media, the reputational stakes are very high. The course is a combination of lecture, guest lecture, discussion, case analysis and in-class research workshops. We will review some of the theory underlying modern governance practice, drawing from theories and evidence provided by research across diverse fields, including finance, sociology, and organization and management theory. We’ll study specific situations where boards and management teams faced governance challenges, and assess the strategies used to deal with them. Finally, we’ll examine the ways in which governance arrangements and external stakeholder involvement in governance affects corporate social behavior and global citizenship. 

0.5 Course Unit

Multiple class sections
Prof. Mary-Hunter McDonnell 

This half-semester course introduces current and future leaders to mass incarceration in the U.S., and its effect on employment and entrepreneurship prospects for formerly incarcerated people. We will explore both the challenges of our correctional system as well as potential solutions. For example, over 600,000 people return home from U.S. prisons each year. For most, the return is short-lived as two-thirds are re-incarcerated within three years of release. We will consider many of the reasons why this occurs, including research indicating that the lack of employment opportunities is a major contributor. We will also hear from those directly impacted by the justice system. By the end of the course, you will be among the more educated leaders not just on mass incarceration, but on how to think about ways that the business community can contribute to the success of those impacted by the criminal justice system. This course will also serve as a pre-requisite for a follow-up experiential course where we will teach business skills and financial acumen justice-impacted people, as well as help with their employment and entrepreneurship opportunities. 

0.5 Course Unit

R 3:30-6:29pm (3/19 to 4/23)
Prof. Damon Phillips 

This is an experiential learning course in partnership with Resilience Education, where the core organizing activity is teaching business topics inside prisons. While this is a professor-led course, it is also a co-created experience where your role is essential. Your work this term will be hugely impactful for your incarcerated learners and their families, as well as foundational for future Wharton MBAs. For these reasons, I thank you in advance for your co-leadership. I hope you take the opportunity to lend your talents to important initiatives. We are bolstered by the fact that research has consistently shown that there are positive returns to education for incarcerated people. At the same time, formal education in prison is usually limited to liberal arts topics. As a result, returning citizens have a need to understand personal finance and how businesses operate in a way that compliments other forms of education that they may be exposed to. There is a particular interest among incarcerated people to learn about entrepreneurship, either because they have promising business ideas or because they see entrepreneurship as a viable alternative given persistent labor market discrimination. This course provides a means for you to pass along these important skills and tools. 

Prerequisite: MGMT 7860 must be taken prior to enrollment. 

1 Course Unit

T 3:30-6:29pm (1/20-4/23)
Prof. Damon Phillips 

Climate change has emerged as a defining societal challenge. Economics and econometrics can be powerful tools for analyzing climate change and environmental challenges more broadly: for understanding how it is caused, who is hurt by it, and how policy solutions may be designed to mitigate it. Exploring the market and non-market forces that drive economic opportunity and inequality, and how these forces could interact with climate change may be important for policymakers and practitioners given the breadth of climate impacts and the wide-ranging implications of energy policy. This course provides an introduction to applied economic scholarship on climate change, with an emphasis on studies and perspectives that use real world data and empirical analyses that permit valid causal inference, which is the science of disentangling cause and effect using real-world data. We will explore the market failures that give rise to climate change; emerging evidence on its effects on human health, economic productivity, crime, and well-being broadly construed; and the forces that may influence whether and how societies will adapt to a changing climate. 

1 Course Unit

R 1:45-4:14 pm
Prof. R. Jisung Park