Master's Scientific Project

Compulsory Elective Scientific Project (Specialization),  15 ECTS 

choose from one of the offered options, for example:

 

A. Cost of Equity – Model-based Estimation vs. Actual Cash Flows
Students gain knowledge of basic and state-of-the-art research on cost-of-capital modeling and computations, develop the competence to prepare, comprehend and discuss relevant literature, are capable to prepare and analyze data, learn to efficiently present their empirical results to a group of peers, study classical cost of equity estimation models, asset pricing theory, study and apply financial data analysis.

 

B. FinTech and Blockchain Innovations
Students acquire knowledge of how to build financial models, experience how to implement the models in programming languages e.g. Python, and Matlab, learn how to practically apply financial modeling tools to a concrete real-world problem, develop an understanding of creating virtual and/or physical prototypes to test and visualize their ideas, gain insights in the young and innovative field of FinTech and Blockchain, improve skills to present and defend their work.

 

This Scientific Project is oriented toward current developments in the fields of FinTech and Blockchain innovations.

 

Students expand their hands-on and interdisciplinary abilities by developing individual solutions to a self-chosen topic in the fields of financial modeling and forecasting, risk management, and financial technologies based on e.g. Blockchain technology.

C. International Tax Planning and Firm Value

Students gain knowledge on current international research in the field of taxation and firm valuation with a focus on tax avoidance and (tax) risk, learn how to specify a research question and how to acquire knowledge in an emerging field of research by themselves, gain experience how to write a seminar thesis, including an extensive literature review, and presentation of results, intensify their skills on statistical research methods and how these methods are used in empirical tax research, analyze of current research on the nexus of tax avoidance, firm value, and risk. The main topic is how taxes avoidance activities and tax aggressiveness affect the market capitalization of firms on stock markets, analysis of research questions including the association of tax avoidance activities and market capitalization, the measurement of tax aggressiveness as well as the identification of causal relationships, discuss how the association of tax avoidance and firm value depends on risk and corporate governance.

        

D. Empirical Behavioral Management Research

Students understand what biases chief executive officers (CEOs) exhibit and how these influence their behavior and firm strategy, develop a profound understanding of the latest empirical methods to analyze behavioral executive biases, learn how to use the statistical program Stata, master recent empirical methodology to identify statistical effects, derive recommendations: How should the CEOs of the future look like and what should they consider in his decision making?

 

This project seminar captures the current state of research on CEO biases and aims to prepare students for related master theses. Relying on the upper echelon's view, a focus will lie on how CEO biases reflect in firm strategy. The module offers a basic course on applied statistics since it will be relevant for the data analysis of CEO biases. The course relies on current insights from empirical research and applies them to practical challenges. Participants will solve issues based on a literature review as well as quantitative modeling and synthesize related insights into leadership recommendations. This seminar will require team collaboration. Applicants are expected to show a high interest in quantitative problem-solving. Additionally, the course will contain workshops to prepare students for practice.