The objective of the course is to learn to read, understand, and analyze financial statements. The course is intended even for students with no previous exposure to financial accounting. The course adopts a decision-maker perspective of accounting by emphasizing the relation between accounting data and the underlying economic events that generated them. The course focuses on how to prepare and interpret the primary financial statements that summarize a firm's economic transactions (i.e., the balance sheet, the income statement, and the statement of cash flows).