Course guide: the group research project

Key dates and rules

Classes are on Wednesday from 9:00 to 13:00 in room T202. Office hours: Wednesday 13:00 to 14:00, by appointment.

What the lecturer wants

The goal is to show that you can engage with academic literature, identify a focused research question and write an analytical, well-structured report. You may build on the indicative papers from e-class, look for similar papers, analyze them and suggest future paths for the area. It is a literature-based paper: you do not need your own dataset, although a small empirical illustration (for example in Excel) can make a strong paper stronger.

Required structure

1. Abstract (150 to 200 words): question, approach, main insight.
2. Introduction: research motivation and objectives, a brief literature background, and your research question(s) or hypothesis.
3. Literature review: a critical discussion of the relevant academic work. Compare studies (data, period, market, method, results), do not just summarize them one by one.
4. Results / Discussion: your key findings or insights and a comparison of the literature: where do studies agree, where do they conflict, and why?
5. Conclusion and implications: summary of findings, implications for investors, fund managers or regulators, limitations and future research.

Step by step: from topic to report

1. Pick a theme from the course: prospect theory, heuristics, framing and mental accounting, market efficiency, limits of arbitrage, momentum, reversal, investor sentiment, herding, bubbles or seasonality. Each weekly chapter ends with a "Project ideas" box.
2. Read two or three core papers on that theme (see the list below; summaries of several of them are under Artikelen).
3. Narrow it down to one question that compares or explains something. Weak: "What is momentum?". Strong: "Is momentum weaker in collectivist countries, and does the evidence support an overconfidence explanation?"
4. Collect 10 to 20 papers: start from the reference lists of the core papers and search Google Scholar for papers that cite them.
5. Build a comparison table (author, year, market, period, method, main result). This table becomes the backbone of your literature review and discussion.
6. Write the discussion around tensions: behavioral versus risk-based explanations, US versus other markets, old versus recent samples, individual versus institutional investors.
7. End with concrete future research: a new market, a new data source (Google Trends, social media), a new period (COVID-19, 2022 inflation, AI stocks) or a new method.

Indicative papers by theme

The readings in the main course folder (herding studies, Porter & Smith on laboratory bubbles, short-term contrarian strategies on the London Stock Exchange, mutual fund momentum and herding) are summarized under Artikelen, each with practice questions.