Abstract
Although Excel is an excellent tool to teach finance, some of its properties really confuse my students, such as its sign convention and no clear explanation accompanying an error message. In addition, typing =fa(0.1,2,0,100) offers no clue about the formula being used. In this short paper, I will replicate several common Excel functions with and without sign convention. The beauty of functions without sign convention is that they come directly from our textbooks. In other words, an exact formula will accompany a result. When typing =rateExcel(3,10,100), we will see the same error message plus a short explanation.
Recommended Citation
(2026)
"Mimic Excel,"
Journal of Economics and Finance Education: Vol. 15:
Iss.
1, Article 9.
Available at:
https://scholarship.rollins.edu/jefe/vol15/iss1/9
