The course is designed for Ph.D. students in accounting, finance, and related fields. Its primary objective is to advance your understanding of how to conduct and evaluate empirical research. The course is heavily focused on research design and design-based identification. The assigned studies and topics serve primarily to illustrate broader challenges of empirical research, e.g., our ability to draw causal inferences.
In terms of topics, much of the course covers the empirical analysis and evaluation of regulation, primarily of disclosure, reporting and transparency in different settings. We discuss a wide array of economic consequences, including capital-market, spillover, reallocation and real effects. Specifically, the course covers the link between disclosure, information asymmetry and the cost of capital, voluntary disclosure incentives, the economic consequences of disclosure and securities regulation and its enforcement, the role of standards, and more. We also discuss transparency regulation for ESG issues and the role of accounting in bank regulation. For each topic, we will discuss the underlying theory, research design, econometric techniques, and data issues. We also discuss ideas for future research in various areas.
