COURSE OUTLINE
Topics in Finance
1. General
School
Academic Unit
Level of Studies
Course code
Semester
Course Title
Idependent Teaching Activities
Weekly Teaching Hours
Credits
Course Type
Prerequite Courses
Language of Instruction and Examinations
Is the course offered to Erasmus Students?
Url (Eclass)
2. Learning Outcomes
Learning Outcomes
Students who wish to undertake a graduate thesis are strongly encouraged to also attend an elective course in Econometrics or to have already attended the advanced course in Time series.
General Competences
- research, analysis and synthesis of data and information, with the use of the necessary technology
- Working independently
- Production of new research ideas
3. Syllabus
Language
The thesis can be written either in Greek or English
Length
Although the length of the thesis depends on the topic and its analysis, 15 pages or 4.500 words (from Introduction to Conclusion) are the minimum acceptable, without considering bibliography/references list, appendices, tables or charts).
Pagination, Font Type and size
All pages (including those with tables and charts) should be numbered at the bottom of the page on the right.
If the language used is Greek, the font should be Arial or Calibri, size 12. If the language used is English, use Times Roman or Calibri, size12. For each section use numbers (1, 2 etc.), not Roman numerals (I, II, etc.).
Cover Page
The cover page should include: the title of the thesis, the student’s full name, the professor’s full name, the month and the year, the department and university logo.
Second Page
The second page should include:
1) the abstract of the thesis, between 150-180 words
2) Then, a separate paragraph with 10 key words related to the content of the thesis
Third page
The third page includes a table of contents (including chapters and number of pages)
References
Articles
Griffiths, W. and Judge, G. (1992) “Testing and Estimating Location Vectors when the Error Covariance Matrix is Unknown.” Journal of Econometrics, Vol. 54, pp. 121-138.
Books
Hawawini, G. and Swary, I. (1990) Mergers and Acquisitions in the U.S. Banking Industry: Evidence from the Capital Markets, North-Holland, Amsterdam.
Volumes
Brunner, K. and Meltzer, A. H. (1990) ‘Money Supply’, in Friedman, B. M. and Hahn, F. H. (eds), Handbook of Monetary Economics, Vol.1. North-Holland: Amsterdam.
Suggested Body of the thesis
The body of the thesis consists of numbered chapters following the suggested order:
- Introduction: describe the hypothesis being investigated in the thesis and why the answer is of economic importance or interest.
- y = f(x)
- what does “y” stand for? What does “x” stand for?, what is the function “f” , i.e., what is the relationship between the variables investigated?
- Chapter 2. (title of the chapter). Refer to previous research on the topic or make a bibliography review, if available
- Chapter 3. (with a title), ….
- Chapter 4. (with a title), …. etc.,
- The structure of the analysis is up to you. You must describe the variables, document the sources, convince for the soundness of the analysis.
- The description of the data and empirical analysis should be as detailed as necessary for the reader to be able to reproduce your work from the information you present.
- Conclusion, summarizing the findings of the analysis
- Footnotes – each footnote should be numbered. They can either appear at the end of each page or, alternatively, be numbered and appear at the end of the thesis as endnotes.
- Appendices, each one should have its own number
- Bibliography or References List in alphabetical order, the English first, then the Greek references in separate sections (Please use indentation as in the example).
- Tables: they should be numbered and referred in the body text. Each table starts on its own page. Tables must be created by students and not be copied or photographed. Tables should be numbered with a title centered at the top. Tables ought to contain complete information with an extensive footnote at the bottom where the variables are described. ATTENTION! When reading the table, there would be no need to refer to the body text to learn the definitions of the variables or to understand the contents of the table. Regressions in tables, with description of R2, DW-statistic, standard errors in parentheses below the coefficient estimates (instead of p-value). If the variable definitions are repeated across the tables, then you can describe them once in the first table and then refer to the following ones, e.g. “see variable definitions in Table x).
- Charts should be illustrated on separate pages, numbered with a title centered at the top of the page, so the body of the text can easily refer to them. Like in the tables, figures and charts ought to contain complete information, so the reader does not have to go to the text to understand the information in the chart. In charts, the two axes should clearly describe the quantities so that the reader can understand the content.
If there are mathematical (or econometric) formulas in the thesis, they must have been produced with the Word Equation Editor and their numbering should be continuous and presented to the right of the formula.
4. Teaching and Learning Methods - Evaluation
Delivery
Use of Information and Communications Technology
Teaching Methods
Activity
Semester Workload
Student Performance Evaluation
5. Attached Bibliography
Suggested Bibliography
Related to the chosen topic