This book provides readers with essential concepts from financial economics for an integrated study of the financial system and the real economy. It discusses how long-term market prices are determined and affected by population growth, technological progress and non-renewable resources. The meaning of market prices is examined from the perspective of households and from the perspective of firms. The book therefore connects different fields of finance, which usually focus only on either the households’ side or the firms’ side.

Thorsten Hens is a Swiss Finance Institute Professor of Financial Economics at the University of Zurich as well as an adjunct professor at the Norwegian School of Economics in Bergen and the University of Lucerne. He studied in Bonn and Paris and previously held positions in Stanford and Bielefeld.

Sabine Elmiger is a research associate at the University of Zurich and visiting scholar at the University of Cape Town. She studied at the ETH Zurich and obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Zurich.