At the Turku School of Economics, you can study finance in a Bachelor’s, Master’s or Doctorate degree. Officially the major is Accounting and Finance with a specialialization are of Finance.

B.Sc.

A number of courses are available (compulsory core courses are LR03 Basic Course in Finance, LR05 Intermediate Finance, and LR8 Business Analysis and Valuation). More information on the study guide book.

Recommendations on (elective) courses for our students are available in the Moodle area called RAHA.

Note also that our students have actively participated in the CFA Research Challenge with great success.

Our finance students can join Aktiiva, the subject association of finance, accounting and business law as well as KY-Kasino, the Association of Academic Investors in Turku.

M.Sc.

A number of courses are available, also in English (compulsory core courses are LRS28 Advanced Corporate Finance or LRS26 Yritysrahoituksen teoria, LRS31 Asset Pricing and Portfolio Theory or LRS23 Quantitative Methods in Finance. More information on the study guide book. Note, however, that at the moment we do not offer the whole master’s programme in finance in English.

Recommendations on (elective) courses for our students is available in the Moodle area called RAHA.

D.Sc.

The doctoral programme at the Turku School of Economics (DPTSE) is a four year programme which includes coursework (40 ECTS) and research (doctoral dissertation). DPTSE is one of the close to twenty doctoral programmes at the University of Turku Graduate School (UTUGS). UTUGS is the “umbrella” for the programs and it takes care of all operations that are common to all programmes (including e.g. handling of new applications).

New applications are accepted in March and in September. Funding is available up to four years to few most promising applicants through the UTUGS fall application after careful internal and external review of the applicants. One or two new students in finance are accepted each year. The ideal application time is in March as the GSF coursework begins in August, but Fall applications are OK also. Those that were accepted in the March application round, and can apply funding in the Fall application round. For more general information (application deadlines, requirements, structure etc) of the Doctoral Programme of Turku School of Economics, use the following link.

TSE is a member of the Finnish nationwide and highly valued Graduate School of Finance and, as such, our doctoral researchers are also students at the GSF at the same time. GSF is a joint initiative of the leading Finnish universities to promote high-quality doctoral education in finance in Finland by organizing advanced level doctoral courses, seminars and workshops. GSF offers a well-structured teaching program for obtaining a Ph.D. degree in finance for students of the member universities. Through GSF, we are also a member of the Nordic Finance Network.

All doctoral researchers (aka PhD students) specializing in Finance at the University of Turku are required to take the following courses through the GSF: Theoretical Asset Pricing, Empirical Asset Pricing, Theoretical Corporate Finance, and Empirical Corporate Finance + one elective course. In addition, PhD students are required to show enough studies in econometrics either before applying or by taking additional courses during their studies.

A certain amount of general and elective studies are compulsory. PhD students are fairly free to choose these courses. For example, the courses available through the Nordic Finance Network (NFN) are available. One can also choose some non-financial courses organized by the UTUGS, Turku School of Economics, the Finnish Doctoral Programme in Economics (FDPE), or the Finnish Doctoral Programme in Business Studies (KATAJA). Optimal execution plan for the studies beginning during 2024-2025 academic year is available here (together with some additional information).

In addition, one needs to write a doctoral disseration. In finance, it contains typically three or four paper, some of which may be published (not required, though). The topics of the paper can be freely chosen, but naturally it is beneficial to pick topics that are of interest to the supervisor(s). The papers (or some of them) can be written together with the supervisor, but there is no expectation that the supervisor is among the co-authors (unlike in some fields) unless (s)he has really contributed to the paper in a meaningful sense.

All accepted doctoral researchers are assigned two supervisors, typically either prof. Alvarez Esteban or prof. Vaihekoski and one of our post-docs. In addition, a tutor (senior doctoral researcher) will be assigned. Note that you do NOT have to contact potential supervisors in advance to ask for more information about the programme. Contact the programme coordinator instead. We want to minimize time spent on answering these emails.

Following the recommendation of the UTUGS, we also accept Cotutelle agreements for doctoral researchers.

All our past doctoral graduates have experienced full employment after graduation, most often in banks.