MASSEY UNIVERSITY AT ALBANY
DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
PAPER NUMBER 178.280
Research Methods in Financial Economics
Semester 2, 2004
Note: This course carries a value of 12.5 points.
PRE-REQUISTE: 161.110 or 161.120; and 178.1xx or 125.1xx.
PAPER DESCRIPTION
An introduction to the techniques of quantitative analysis in finance and economics.
Students will be involved in applications covering a broad range of economics and
finance topics. Appropriate software packages will be utilised.
PURPOSE
This paper develops your skills as a researcher in Financial Economics. This focus
on skills leads to the paper emphasising computer labs- at the expense of lectures- in
order to develop these skills. These skills are often in demand for both further study
and in places of employment.
CLASS TIMES
There is one hour of lectures per week.
Lecture:
Monday, 2 pm to 3 pm, AT2
In addition students should attend at least one tutorial and one supervised computer
lab per week. Labs or tutorials that do not maintain attendance of at least 5 students
will be cancelled.
TEXTBOOK
Koop, G. Analysis of Economic Data.
Students with a strong background in Statistics may prefer:
Studenmund, A.H. Using Econometrics: A Practical Guide. 4 Ed.
COURSE CONTROLLER
Dr B Moyle
QB2.35 ext 9472 email: b.j.moyle@massey.ac.nz
LECTURER
Dr X Li
QB2.3 ext 9471 email: x.n.li@massey.ac.nz
ASSESSMENT
This course is 100% internally assessed.
Each student has 10 computer labs to complete. Each lab exercise will be given a
grade of 0, 1, 2 or 3. There are two assignments. In week 12 there will be one
internal test.
The assessment weights are as follows:
 Laboratory exercises
30%
 Assignment 1
20%
 Assignment 2
20%
 Test
30%
The dates at which work must be submitted is as follows:
Assessment
Date
30 July
Lab 1
6 August
Lab 2
13 August
Lab 3
20 August
Lab 4
27 August
Assignment 1
10 September
Lab 5
17 September
Lab 6
24 September
Lab 7
1 October
Lab 8
6 October
Test
11 October
Lab 9 and 10
22 October
Assignment 2
Grade Schedule for Labs
Grade Rationale
Lab not handed in or mostly incomplete.
0
Lab with substantial errors or incomplete.
1
Satisfactory pass- with no substantial errors and largely complete.
2
Exceptional pass- labs are complete, lacking errors and done with more
3
rigour than expected.
Assignments will be awarded a letter grade (e.g. B+).
Written answers must show evidence that these are your own independent work.
Answers that are copied from text-books, websites or other students do not show
evidence of independent work. Plagiarised work will receive a fail grade.
GRADE POLICY
Semester Grades are indicative if your performance relative to others in the class.
Please note that when final grades are being calculated, any grades from internal
assessment may be fit to a curve at the discretion of the Department of Commerce.