Corporate Finance Assignment

Honours Corporate Finance 2021-22

Student presentations

1. You are asked to give a presentation about any two empirical academic papers, both on the same topic, in the broad area of corporate finance. An empirical paper is a paper which presents original empirical evidence. Do not choose a theory paper, a literature review, a policy paper, or a paper on methodology. In other words, do not choose any sort of paper that does not present original empirical evidence.

2. The choice of topic and papers is up to you. The topic can be, but need not be, one of the topics in the course programme of study. At least one of the papers you discuss should be a paper that is not on the list of papers in the course programme. The other paper can either be from the list, or another paper that is not on the list.

Try to choose papers that interest you and that you understand. Most papers will contain some bits that you don’t understand, and that’s OK. Avoid papers that you substantially do not understand.

3. The aim of the presentation is to tell the audience about the papers and explain how they relate to each other. Your focus should be on the two chosen papers only. If you mention any other papers, do so briefly. Your talk should be about (i) what question(s) each paper is seeking to answer, (ii) how each paper has obtained its results, i.e. the research methods, (iii) what the results are and how they contribute to knowledge, and (iv) how the papers relate to each other.

4. You have a maximum of seven minutes to make the presentation. Do not exceed this time limit. Each presentation will be followed by about three minutes for questions from the assessor and other students.

I suggest that you do not try to cover every aspect of each paper. For example, you don’t need to cover all the robustness tests. Focus on what you regard as the most important or interesting points. The introduction will highlight what the authors regard as most important.

Avoid having too much material and too many slides to get through in your actual presentation. You don’t have to go through all your slides in equal detail. You can if you wish submit a few extra slides that you don’t talk about. However, the bulk of what you have to say should be in the slides that you do talk about.

5. Your presentation will be delivered in person. You will be assigned to one of the hour-long sessions for presentations which have been timetabled during the last three weeks of teaching (weeks 9 to 11 of the semester). Please check out in advance where you will be presenting—most of the rooms booked are in High School Yards near Old College, not in the Business School.

Five students will be assigned to each session. They should all have joined the session at the start of the relevant hour, and be ready to present and participate in the Q&A. Other non-presenting students are invited and encouraged to attend any session they wish.

Use a memory stick to bring your slides with you. Do not try to log in before your presentation, as this will take much too long.

6. Any time before your presentation, please submit your slides on Learn in the same way as you would an essay.

7. The presentation is worth 30% of the overall course mark. You will be assessed on how well you understand and explain the chosen two papers, how effective your presentation and slides are in communicating what you want to say, and how well you answer the questions.