| Unit name | Empirical Accounting and Finance |
|---|---|
| Unit code | EFIMM0093 |
| Credit points | 15 |
| Level of study | M/7 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Dr. Korczak |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
Nil |
| Co-requisites |
Nil |
| School/department | School of Accounting and Finance - Business School |
| Faculty | Faculty of Social Sciences and Law |
The aim of this unit is to introduce students to doing quantitative empirical research in accounting and finance. The first part of the unit covers principles of conducting accounting and finance research, doing the literature review and working with Stata and with financial databases. The second part of the unit focuses on practical implementation of selected quantitative research methodologies, with a focus on cross-sectional and panel data techniques. In the unit, the students are exposed to leading empirical research in various areas of accounting and finance and learn how to develop their own research project, with an emphasis on critical assessment of the existing theoretical and empirical literature, obtaining and organising data, analysing it with relevant methods and techniques using econometric software and writing up the results in a formal fashion. This unit prepares students to work on a quantitative empirical accounting or corporate finance dissertation in the summer.
By the end of the course, students will have to:
1) Critically apply available empirical methods in accounting and finance;
2) Discuss the limitations of such quantitative methods;
3) Do a literature review;
4) Analyse, using special software, different quantitative models related to accounting and finance;
5) Assess the economic significance of the outputs of the aforementioned quantitative methods applied to different datasets;
6) Reflect on potential new problems and ideas that could be addressed with the quantitative methods applied on the course.
Teaching will be delivered through a combination of synchronous and asynchronous sessions including lectures, tutorials, drop-in sessions, discussion boards and other online learning opportunities
This unit will be assessed by group coursework 50% and individual coursework 50%
There is no specific textbook for the unit. Instead, the reading combines detailed study of specific academic research papers used to illustrate each of the topics with selected parts of background references, such as:
M. Saunders, P. Lewis and A. Thornhill (2015) ‘Research Methods for Business Students’, 7th Edition, Pearson
C. Brooks (2014) ‘Introductory Econometrics for Finance’, 3rd Edition, Cambridge University Press
C.F. Baum (2006) ‘Introduction to Modern Econometrics Using Stata’, Stata Press
