As an educator, Peter Tufano developed over 50 case studies, and created three new courses at Harvard for MBAs. For a full listing of his case studies, see his curriculum vitae. He has also offered versions of these courses in various Executive Education programmes:
Consumer Finance: This elective course for MBA and law students was co-developed and co-taught with Howell Jackson, Professor at Harvard Law School, and was cross-university offering. The course introduces students to the multi-trillion dollar consumer finance sector which spans all of the major business providing four key functions: payments, savings, borrowing, and risk management. The course adopts three frames of reference: the consumer, the businesses, and the political economy. The consumer element of the course introduces students to the economic, psychological, and sociological elements that affect the needs, preferences and decision making of consumers. The business element of the course examines business strategies, economic models, and bases of competition. The political economy aspect of the course examines the rationales for, design of, and implementation of laws and regulations.
Corporate Financial Engineering: This elective MBA offering examines how financial managers can responsibly use new capital markets technologies to advance their corporate strategies, by: (1) managing financial risks and position firms to exploit strategic opportunities; (2) lowering firms' financing costs (by tailoring securities for particular investors' needs; (3) signaling information; (4) structuring incentives; and (5) substituting for or complement product market decisions. These activities are often implemented through risk management programs and security issues. The course deals with the design and pricing of a wide range of instruments and the design and operation of risk management programs at firms. While the primary educational objective is to study the applications of financial engineering, an equally important objective is to give students a technical introduction to the understanding the building blocks of derivatives, especially options.
Finance 2: This required Finance course taken by all MBA students was introduced as part of a major redesign of the finance curriculum. This second required course focused on critical corporate decisions: How should a firm set and evaluate its financial policies? How should it evaluate complex investment decisions? How should it integrate these decisions with one another and with its broader business strategy, especially in global settings? Beyond the traditional corporate finance and valuation concepts, the course emphasized a few core ideas: (a) the law of one price (a fundamental building block for valuation and financial policy making); (b) the imperfections matrix (a single set of frictions that routinely influence financial policies); (c) options as a metaphor for flexibility; and (d) the functional perspective (analyzing financial institutions and products in terms of the core financial functions they serve, rather than focus on institutional descriptions.)