Empirical Corporate Finance

Course Description:This course offers a doctoral level introduction to Empirical Corporate Finance and aims to prepare doctoral students to do research on their own in this field. The course is organized around published and working papers in the filed with an emphasis on econometric methods. Rather than providing an exhaustive overview of the field, the course focuses in depth on selected topics to illustrate different empirical approaches to the same of related questions. For instance using papers on ownership concentration and corporate governance, the course will highlight the following empirical themes: endogeneity, difference in difference estimators and event studies.

Learning outcomes: See course website

Course requirements: The course requires a good knowledge of the 1st year Ph.D. courses in econometrics as well as some basic knowledge of corporate finance.

Target group: Doctoral students in Finance and related disciplines.

Time: June 9th – 13th, 2014

Place: Aalto University School of Business, Helsinki

Course Language: English

ECTS: 6 Credits

Number of students: 25 students. Finance PhD students have priority, but the course is also open for KATAJA-, FDPE-, and foreign doctoral students given that there is space in the course. Applications are sent directly to gsf@aalto.fi and application deadline will be announced later on in the course web pages: http://gsf.aalto.fi/html_studies/gsf_empirical_corporate_finance.html. The acceptances will be announced shortly after the registration deadline.

Course work and evaluation: Written exam, term paper and empirical exercises will comprise the final grade. Grading will be on the scale of 0-5.

Required readings: See course website

Instructors: Instructor Renée Adams (University of New South Wales) http://www.asb.unsw.edu.au/schools/Pages/ReneeAdams.aspx

Course Coordinator and contact person: Milja Koski, gsf@aalto.fi , 0403538061. Application instructions on course web pages: http://gsf.aalto.fi/html_studies/gsf_empirical_corporate_finance.html.