| 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 |
Quantitative Methods for Accounting and Finance (new unit) |
| Co-requisites |
Nil |
| School/department | School of Accounting and Finance - Business School |
| Faculty | Faculty of Social Sciences and Law |
An advance course on applied econometrics, with special emphasis on cross sectional and panel data techniques used in accounting and corporate finance. This will assist students in the understanding and application of quantitative methods in real life problems related to accounting and finance, to improve their understanding of academic literature, and to prepare them for 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.
25 contact hours split between large-group lectures and small-group practical classes in a computer lab.
Summative assessment: 1.5-hour written exam (50%) and group coursework (50%)
The coursework is based on a small research task including literature review and data analysis. The submitted report is written up in a form of a short academic paper (normally up to 4,000 words). There will normally be 3 students in a coursework group, and each student in the group will gain the same mark.
Both the exam and coursework test all intended learning outcomes.
Formative assessment: structured problem-solving exercises to get hands-on experience in doing quantitative research, discussed in classes.
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
