Empirical Corporate Finance
Time: 21.-25.5.2024
Place: Aalto University School of Business, Otaniemi, Espoo
Registrations: The deadline for registrations is May 6, 2024. See registration/application details at the bottom of the page.
Teaching: Professor Renée Adams (Saïd Business School, University of Oxford)
NFN Travel Grant: NFN offers Travel Grants for attending PhD students in finance coming from Nordic institutions outside of Finland. To apply for the Travel Grant, please use the below form and send it to nfn (at) aalto.fi.
Lectures: 20 h of lectures (20 x 45 minutes)
| DAY | DATE | TIME | PLACE (Otaniemi Campus Map) |
| Tuesday | 21.5.2024 | 14:00 – 18 | T004, Ekonominaukio 1 |
| Wednesday | 22.5.2024 | 9:00 – 13 | T004, Ekonominaukio 1 |
| Thursday | 23.5.2024 | 9:00 – 13 | U006, Ekonominaukio 1 |
| Friday | 24.5.2024 | 9:00 – 13 | V001, Ekonominaukio 1 |
| Saturday | 25.5.2024 | 9:00 – 13 | V001, Ekonominaukio 1 |
Course objective: 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 field 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 or 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.
Prerequisites: The course requires a good knowledge of the 1st year Ph.D. courses in econometrics as well as some basic knowledge of corporate finance.
Course outline:
Reading list:
Access to the articles is subject to your home institutions’ subsciptions to the databases. Hard copies of all readings are available for consultation at GSF office (Ekonominaukio 1, room T317)
Lecture notes:
The password for opening the files will be sent to the students.
Exercises: The homework instructions and material have been sent directly to the course participants.
Credit units: 6 ECTS cr.
List of participants:
Participants: Doctoral students in finance. The course is also open for KATAJA as well as FDPE and Helsinki GSE students with sufficient background in finance and/or economics. The course is also open for foreign doctoral students given that there is space in the course.
Examinations
The whole course comprises 3 compulsory parts (a written exam, an empirical exercise and a referee report). The total points of this course are 100. In order to pass the course one needs at least 50% of the points (i.e. 50 points). In addition, one has to get at least 50% of the points from each part.
- A written exam (50 % weight)
- An empirical exercise (25 % weight)
- A referee report (25% weight)
Homework Deadline: Saturday, August 31, 2024. Please return the assignments to GSF coordinator via email at reetta.ali-alha (@) aalto.fi. Please respect the deadline promptly. Note: Using AI/ChatGPT is not allowed.
Examination dates and times:
Examination date and time : Thursday, June 6, at 10:00-14:00 in U006, Aalto University School of Business, Ekonominaukio 1. Please register for the exam through this link. The registration link will be closed one week prior to the exam.
If you wish to take the exam in your home university (other than GSF member university), please see instructions below.
Exam locations:
Espoo: Aalto University School of Business
Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä
Lappeenranta: Lappeenranta University of Technology
Oulu: University of Oulu
Turku: University of Turku
Vaasa: University of Vaasa
Other locations: Doctoral students in other universities are requested to inform the GSF by sending an e-mail to gsf@aalto.fi if they wish to take the exam in their home universities. The exam can be taken abroad where suitable exam supervision can be arranged. Please note that the exam must be written in the presence of an exam supervisor. Thus, please submit the name of the exam supervisor at least 14 days before the examination. Possible payment and arrangements for supervision should be made by the student.
Please note: No retake exam will be offered for any reason (beyond your control or not).
Registration/Application
- Doctoral students of GSF, FDPE and Helsinki GSE: Please register through this link.
- Doctoral students in related fields and doctoral students at foreign universities: Application form can be found below (both in PDF and Word format). In addition to the application form, please also send a report on the status of your doctoral studies, and a brief CV. Please also ask your thesis advisor to send us a short letter of recommendation by-email. All the required documents should be sent by e-mail to gsf@aalto.fi. All applicants will be informed of their acceptance soon after the registration deadline.