Content, progress and pedagogy of the module

The objective of this module is to introduce students to empirical research and methods in corporate finance. During the module, students will develop an understanding of how to use STATA and EViews software for data science. The empirical methods that will be addressed in the module include event studies, instrumental variables, panel data, and difference‐in‐differences estimations, among others. All empirical methods will be applied to the topics in corporate finance such as corporate investment decisions, capital structure, internal and external financing, internal corporate governance, the market for corporate control, and initial public offerings. During the module, students will learn how to work with worldwide company and financial data by using open data and software solutions. The information and skills acquired in this course will enable students to develop novel research questions and outline future research directions.

This module will provide a review of topics and empirical methods essential for the students wishing to do a Master dissertation in Corporate Finance. However, the methods taught in the course can be applied to other areas.

Learning objectives

Knowledge

The objective is that the student after the module possesses the necessary knowledge on:

• critically analysing the utilization of data sources and data issues in empirical corporate finance.
• the application of econometric methods to analyse problems within corporate finance.
• generalising of the results from empirical analyses to corporate finance theories.

Skills

The objective is that the student after the module possesses the necessary skills in:

• collecting relevant data and evaluation of data quality.
• providing a solid motivation and econometric analysis for the chosen problem.
• evaluating and reflecting upon empirical studies using relevant data to empirical corporate finance.

Competences

The objective is that the student after the module possesses the necessary competences in:

• implementing models and econometric techniques within the area of empirical corporate finance.
• discussing the strengths and weaknesses of a proposed model and/or econometric technique and providing a relative assessment of the model/technique chosen to other alternatives
• formulating and presenting the results of the analysis in a written report.

Type of instruction

For information see § 17.

Exam

Exams