Synopsis

Essentials of Corporate Finance, 7th edition by Ross, Westerfield, and Jordan is written to convey the most important concepts and principles of corporate finance at a level that is approachable for a wide audience. The authors retain their modern approach to finance, but have distilled the subject down to the essential topics in 18 chapters. They believe that understanding the “why” is just as important, if not more so, than understanding the “how,” especially in an introductory course. Three basic themes emerge as their central focus:

1. An emphasis on intuition—separate and explain the principles at work on a common sense, intuitive level before launching into specifics. Underlying ideas are discussed first in general terms, then followed by specific examples that illustrate in more concrete terms how a financial manager might proceed in a given situation.

2. A unified valuation approach—Net Present Value is treated as the basic concept underlying corporate finance. Every subject the authors cover is firmly rooted in valuation, and care is taken to explain how decisions have valuation effects.

3. A managerial focus—Students learn that financial management concerns management. The role of financial manager as decision maker is emphasized and they stress the need for managerial input and judgment.

Biography

Stephen Ross is presently the Franco Modigliani Professor of Finance and Economics at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. One of the most widely published authors in finance and economics, Professor Ross is recognized for his work in developing the Arbitrage Pricing Theory and his substantial contributions to the discipline through his research in signaling, agency theory, option pricing, and the theory of the term structure of interest rates, among other topics. A past president of the American Finance Association, he currently serves as an associate editor of several academic and practitioner journals. He is a trustee of CalTech, a director of the College Retirement Equity Fund (CREF), and Freddie Mac. He is also the co-chairman of Roll and Ross Asset Management Corporation.

Randoloph W. Westerfield is Dean of the Marshall School of Business at University of Southern California and holder of the Robert R. Dockson Dean’s Chair of Business Administration.

From 1988 to 1993, Professor Westerfield served as the chairman of the School’s finance and business economics department and the Charles B. Thornton Professor of Finance. He came to USC from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where he was the chairman of the finance department and member of the finance faculty for 20 years. His areas of expertise include corporate financial policy, investment management and analysis, mergers and acquisitions, and stock market price behavior.

Professor Westerfield has served as a member of the Continental Bank trust committee, supervising all activities of the trust department. He has been consultant to a number of corporations, including AT&T, Mobil Oil and Pacific Enterprises, as well as to the United Nations, the U.S. Department of Justice and Labor, and the State of California.

Bradford D. Jordan is Professor of Finance and Gatton Research Fellow in the Carol Martin Gatton College of Business and Economics at the University of Kentucky. He has a long-standing interest in both applied and theoretical issues in corporate finance, and has extensive experience teaching all levels of corporate finance and financial management policy. Professor Jordan has published numerous articles on issues such as cost of capital, capital structure, and the behavior of security prices.