Credit: Anna Logue
Spring 2023
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Accounting
ACC / TAX 910: Area Seminar Accounting and TaxationECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: ACC / TAX 910Course Content
The course focuses on current research topics in the field of accounting and taxation. Visiting researchers present their latest working papers and discuss their ideas with participating faculty and students. The presentations have workshop format and are similar in style to leading scientific conferences. For each presentation, a separate preparation session for the Ph.D. students is offered in advance by rotating faculty. Overall, the course deepens the students’ insights into a variety of research methods that are currently popular in empirical and theoretical research.
Learning outcomes: Students will learn to follow-up with and discuss about current research topics in accounting and taxation. The interaction with leading researchers will allow them to develop own research ideas and get insights into the design, execution and presentation of research projects.
Seminar Dates are announced here.
ACC / TAX 920: Brown Bag Seminar Empirical Accounting & TaxationECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: ACC / TAX 920Course Content
The course is taught in a seminar-style format. Students present their own research ideas at different stages of the project (early ideas, preliminary results, and complete working papers). The presentations involve an interactive discussion between faculty and students about the project’s potential contribution, related literature, research design and interpretation of results.
Learning outcomes: Students will learn how to present and discuss their own research results in a scientific format. They will become acquainted with acting as a discussant for other topics. Students will gain insights into the assessment of contribution, research design, and interpretation of research papers. The development of these skills is also helpful for writing scientific referee reports.
Form of assessment: Oral Participation
Coursedates will be announced via email to registered participants.
ACC 903: Empirical Accounting Research I (Research Methods)6 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: ACC 903Credits: 6Prerequisites
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Course Content
This course provides a comprehensive overview of research topics and methods in influential seminal as well as contemporaneous papers in the empirical accounting literature. In particular, we cover after an (1) introduction and a review of some “Accounting Classics”, the literatures on (2) Earnings Management, (3) Valuation (value relevance, earnings response coefficients (ERC)/event studies, accounting-based valuation), (4) Voluntary Disclosure, (5) Mandatory Disclosure, (6) International/
-Institutional Accounting and IFRS, and (7) Corporate Narratives. In each session, there is first an overview lecture introducing core methods in the corresponding field, and second a session in which we will jointly discuss in more depth selected empirical methods. Students are expected to prepare all readings and to lead selected class discussions about assigned papers in the second half of each lecture. The lectures and student discussions are supplemented by assignments on which bases we discuss topics such as which research fields are currently ‘en vogue’ in the scientific journals, how to ‘stay informed’ and identify potentially relevant regulatory changes, how to know about topics influential researchers are working on, or discuss where students see their individual strength and how they can become competitive researchers in the future.
Learning outcomes: Students should know about the core issues of existing accounting research and established empirical research methodologies. They should also be able to place current research into the literature and to critically evaluate its relevance and technical rigor, and therefore be able to develop meaningful research ideas to extend current knowledge.
Form of assessment: Exam (90 minutes) 50 %, paper presentations 50 %
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 14.02.23 – 28.03.23 Tuesday 15:30 – 18:30 O 254 Download ACC 904: Empirical Accounting Research II (Causal Inference)6 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: ACC 904Credits: 6Prerequisites
Recommended: Empirical Accounting Research I, Advanced Econometrics I, Applied Econometrics
Course Content
The course provides PhD students with an introduction to current topics and methods in empirical accounting research. The course aims to survey a wide variety of empirical research in in this field. The course covers methodological issues, theoretical background, and selected empirical papers. The assigned papers serve as examples to illustrate challenges of empirical research in accounting.
The course is structured around different identification approaches that are frequently used in recent accounting research. This structure reflects the increasing importance of empirical strategies to address causality concerns in empirical accounting papers. I will integrate a number of examples from neighboring fields like economics, finance, taxation, and management into the course.
Learning outcomes: Students are able to understand and evaluate research questions, contribution, and research methods of current research papers on accounting-related issues. Students are also able to develop new research questions based on their knowledge of the accounting literature.
Form of assessment: Exam (90 minutes) 50%, presentation 50%
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 13.02.23 – 20.03.23 Monday 10:15 – 13:30 Download Lecture 24.03.23 – 24.03.23 Friday 14:00 – 18:00 Palace O 254 Download ACC 922: Decarbonization Seminar3 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: ACC 922Credits: 3Course Content
This course is aimed at doctoral students at GESS. The seminar hosts speakers from academia and industry to discuss latest advances and challenges associated with the transition towards a decarbonized energy economy. Topics covered include the economics and management of sustainability activities and clean energy technologies across all sectors of the economy with a particular focus on the energy sector, transportation services, and carbon-free manufacturing processes.
Course participants need to attend the seminar talks and the corresponding preparation sessions. In the preparation sessions, students are asked to present a paper and take the role of a discussant. Readings may additionally include recent theory or empirical papers.
Learning outcomes: The primary objective of the course is to introduce students to current research paradigms on the covered topics and to identify promising avenues for future research. Moreover, students receive a training on how to present and evaluate papers in seminars and conferences.
Form of assessment: Participation (20%), Paper presentations and discussions (80%)
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 13.02.23 – 22.05.23 Monday 17:15 – 18:45 O 129 Download IS 809: Advanced Data Science Lab II (Text Mining)6 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: IS 809Credits: 6Course Content
The goal of this lab exercises is to guide students through the typical steps of a scientific data-science project from problem formulation to data acquisition, selection of methods, analysis and presentation / documentation. The focus of this lab will be on analyzing textual data, for example large scale news or social media datasets, using techniques and methods from the domain of natural language processing. The students will present their results and write a paper about their research.
Learning Goals: Students will be equipped with practical experience with conducting scientific data-science projects. They will train their presentation skills, learn to communicate in research projects and receive feedback.
Examination: Written elaboration (90%) and presentation (10%)
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 15:30 – 17:00 L 15, 1–6, 314–315 Download Tutorial Exercise 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 17:15 – 18:45 L 15, 1–6, 314–315 Download MET 931: Topics in Advanced Sampling Methods: Design and Causal Inference5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: MET 931Credits: 5Prerequisites
The reading course is aimed at Ph.D. students in or beyond their second year to support them during their research phase. 1st year PhD students are welcomed to attend the class as well.
Recommended: Knowledge of basic statistics and prior experience with R or Stata is helpful, but not necessary.
Course Content
This reading course provides a hands-on and paper-based approach to understanding and analyzing data. For many projects, collection of new data or experimental designs are the only way to answer a research question or to provide the decisive complementary evidence. Different ways to collect data can have important implications for model estimation and evaluation, parameter inference, and policy conclusions. Standard econometric methods start from assumptions about the sampling procedure and try to cope with the limitations of a given dataset. Instead, we start at the design stage and examine the interplay between sampling and experimental methods, statistical inference and estimation of causal effects. We will use the German Business Panel as point in case and implement cutting-edge methods to gain insights into the causal mechanisms behind reported outcomes. In each session, one of the participants will present a research paper, which we will discuss in light of concrete implementation at trial scale. Participants are encouraged to present research that is valuable for their own thesis or may be assigned to present a topic.
In addition to presenting a paper and participating in the discussion, students are expected to write a short technical report that summarizes the methods and implications in a way useful for peers who want to use the newly collected data or learn about experimental results.
Learning outcomes:
The specific applications cover a broad set of skills with a focus on design of questionnaires and survey experiments, data analysis and quantitative methods, classification, inference, writing of own reports, and opportunities for own research.
- Analytical Skills/
Problem-Solving: Students will effectively visualize, conceptualize, articulate, and solve or address problems, with available or newly generated information, through experimentation and observation, mainly using statistical and programming tools. - Critical Thinking: Students will apply empirical analysis to everyday problems in data collection and analysis helping them to understand events, evaluate specific methods, compare arguments with different conclusions to a specific issue, and assess the role played by assumptions.
- Quantitative Reasoning: Students will understand how to design collection and analysis of empirical evidence. Specifically, they may obtain and/
or collect relevant data, develop empirical evidence using appropriate statistical techniques, and interpret the results of such analyses. - Specialized Knowledge and Practical Application: Students will develop deeper analytical, critical, and quantitative skills in specialized areas by applying programming skills and statistical concepts to real world situations.
- Interdisciplinary Knowledge: Participants will broaden their knowledge by studying methods used in economics, sociology, political science, and other fields.
- Communication and Leadership: Participants will build presentation and discussion skills, ensuring they are prepared to navigate diverse audiences and situations. Collaborations of participants prepares joint projects.
- Preparation of Own Research: Projects will be valuable for own research projects; applications provide best practice examples.
Form of assessment: Paper (technical report) (optional), Presentation (50 %), Class Participation (50 %)
The course is also part of the TRR 266 Accounting for Transparency
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 10:15 – 11:45 B 144, A5, 6 – B Download RES: Financial Economics of Climate and Sustainability (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RESCredits: 5Prerequisites
The course will assume that participants have a background in core graduate‐level finance. The course will cover topics from a variety of subfields in finance (asset pricing, financial intermediation, household finance, corporate finance). The introductory block of three classes is intended to orient students to the science of climate change as well as to refresh key concepts from economics and finance; the remaining classes will dive into detail on current research in different subfield. We will conclude with a discussion of open topics in this field. We expect that the course will be useful to doctoral students in finance, economics, and accounting. As a global class, we will largely be on Zoom. Beyond weekly preparation and participation, students will be expected to write a paper either laying out a potential research topic or synthesizing a set of related papers that were not discussed in class.
Course Content
The purpose of the course is to (a) introduce graduate students to questions and methods in the rapidly evolving fields of climate/
sustainable finance; (b) connect researchers from across the globe interested in this topic to stimulate more rigorous, relevant, and collaborative work. Addressing climate change demands changes in natural, social, and economic systems and will require greater collaboration. In that spirit, this course is being offered by a team of professors from different schools and universities across the globe. Each instructor will deliver one or more lectures and there will be students from a number of different schools. Our teaching group consists of current and former AFA and EFA presidents and some of the leading climate finance scholars, including Laura Starks (current AFA President), Patrick Bolton (former AFA President), Stefano Giglio, Marcin Kacperczyk (former EFA President), Caroline Flammer, Geoff Heal, Stefan Reichelstein, Ben Caldecott and Peter Tufano.
Assessment
Beyond weekly preparation and participation, students will be expected to write a paper either laying out a potential research topic or synthesizing a set of papers related to Climate Change and Sustainability that were not discussed in class.
This course starts early (January 24), please make sure to register until December 20, 2022!
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 24.01.23 – 11.04.23 Tuesday 17:00 – 19:00 online (Zoom) Download RES: New Perspectives on Economics and Politics (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RESCredits: 5Course Content
We live in interesting times both, economically and politically. Many observers point to crises and uncertain developments in the economic and political world. Making sense of the nature of these challenges and pointing toward economic and political solutions for the future requires new perspectives. This is a course about the big and bold questions in economics and politics. How can or should economics and politics be organized to best serve society? What does it mean to put humans as they really are at the center of economic and political thinking? What role do morals and values, or dignity and respect, play for the way economics and politics work? What are the implications of digitalization for capitalism and freedom?
We will try to come to grips with these questions by reading and discussing four key books on various new perspectives at the intersection between economics and politics. The aim of this course is to go as deep as we can and to get as much out of an in-class discussion of the material as possible. Willingness to acquire and read the books is a must. If you are unsure about whether or not you would want to take on the commitment of reading four books in one semester then this course is probably not the right one for you.
Students need to be willing to read books, form their own opinions on them, and elaborate on and defend their own views in group discussions and a final essay.Required Readings
Friedman, M. (1963). Capitalism and Freedom. University of Chicago Press.
Greene, J. (2015). Moral Tribes. Atlantic Books.
Sandel, M. J. (2020). The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?. Penguin UK.
Zuboff, S. (2016). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. PublicAffairs.
Schedule
Seminar 24.02.23 – 24.02.23 Friday 13:45 – 15:15 D002 in B6, 27–29 Download 21.04.23 – 02.06.23 Friday 10:15 – 13:30 D002 in B6, 27–29 Download RES / IntRes: Interdisciplinary Research in the Economic and Social Sciences (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RES / IntResCredits: 5Prerequisites
This course is exclusively geared towards students who are currently doctoral students at the GESS of the University of Mannheim. It is intended for beginning as well as advanced doctoral students. This course is an elective course and counts as a 'Bridge Course'. Maximum number of participants is 15. If the course is not fully booked, non-GESS students from Business, Economics, or the Social Sciences or from other related disciplines can enroll. As a necessary requirement you need to make a working paper draft available to all of us that you present in our ‘Mini Research Day’.
Course Content
This course will introduce students to interdisciplinary research and aims at initiating projects of an interdisciplinary nature, thereby fostering the interdisciplinary spirit of the graduate students at the GESS. This year, the course will be given by one senior researchers from each center of the GESS, i.e., you will have the unique opportunity to receive truly interdisciplinary feedback on your work from three different angles.
The course consists of four core building blocks:
1. Kick-Off & Introductory Session: What is interdisciplinary research.
After a short introduction on the nature and success of interdisciplinary research as well as the structure of the course by the instructors, each participant will shortly (max 5 min, 2–3 slides per person) present the core idea of an interdisciplinary paper published in a top journal in her field. Please browse the recent issues of the most important journals in your field to find such a paper. Note that interdisciplinarity can have various aspects in this context (e.g., methods developed for a specific purpose in one field being used in another context, using a theoretical framework from one area to better understand a research question in another, using data generated in another context for a research project, ...). Your presentation should make clear, what the interdisciplinary innovation of the paper is. Alternatively, you can also present a dataset or a methodology and highlight how students from other GESS centers might take advantage of it.
2. Mini-Research-Day
The second component of the course is a ‘Mini-Research-Day’ which is intended to introduce the kind of topics you are working on to other course participants. You will give a presentation on a current working paper or research project of yours and you will discuss a paper/
presentation from one of your fellow students from another field (10 min presentation, 5 min discussion, 10 min Q&A). 3. Science Speed Dating
The science speed dating event – organized by your student representatives – involves short bilateral talks between participants with the later possibility to match research interests. All course participants will participate in the speed dating event and are asked to develop at least one collaborative research proposal with a student from another field (preferably from our course).
4. Project Presentations & Writeups
This proposal will be presented by groups of 2 (in exceptional cases 3) students in a final meeting about four weeks after the speed dating event. Each research team will also prepare a short write-up of their proposal (max. 5 pages, incl. references) explaining the intended contribution to the literature, the interdisciplinary aspects of the project and the proposed procedure how to implement the project to be handed in two weeks after the presentation. Moreover, you will also discuss another team project.
Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, students will
- have gotten in touch with a variety of disciplinary research methods and perspectives from different fields.
- critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these research methods.
- identify and develop an interdisciplinary research proposal and communicate their ideas clearly in both, a presentation and in writing.
- have received feedback from senior researchers from all three centers.
- have practiced to present their work to a critical, interdisciplinary audience and to discuss other students work in a format closely resembling that of most academic conferences.
Assessment
This is a pass/
fail course. To successfully pass the course, each student has to: - Give a short paper presentation in the introductory session.
- Present, discuss, and participate in the ‘Mini Research Day’. An extended abstract and the set of slides that will be used for the presentation or (preferably) a working paper draft needs to be provided by each presenting student to the assigned discussant a week before the research day.
- Participate at the science speed dating event.
- Present your interdisciplinary research proposal (group of two students) and subsequently hand in a write-up.
- Full and active participation in all four building blocks is necessary to pass the course.
- The best interdisciplinary proposal will win a prize.
Please register by the registration deadline given below, by sending a title and an abstract of the research project/
topic you would like to present during the ‘Mini Research Day’ to gess.registrationuni-mannheim.de. Please indicate in your e-mail your fields of interest and mention up to three broad other fields (e.g. Marketing, Macroeconomics, Social Psychology, Political Science) you would like to collaborate with. Please note that the course is limited to a maximum of 15 participants, and seats will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
Course dates
- January 31st, 2023 – Course Registration Deadline
- February 15th, 2023, 10:00 – 14:00 – Kick-Off Meeting, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- February 23th – Deadline to send paper to discussant (and in cc to: gess.office@uni-mannheim.de)
- March 2nd, 2023, 10:00 – 19:00 – Mini Research Day, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- March 30th, 2023, exact time TBA – Science Speed Dating event, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- May 25, 2023, 10:00 – 19:00 – Presentation of Research Proposal, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- June 8th, 2023 – Deadline to hand in interdisciplinary research proposal (to: gess.office@uni-mannheim.de)
Competences acquired
Upon successful completion of this course, students will
- have gotten in touch with a variety of disciplinary research methods and perspectives from different fields
- critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these research methods
- identify and develop an interdisciplinary research proposal and communicate their ideas clearly in both, a presentation and in writing.
- have received feedback from senior researchers from all three centers.
- have practiced to present their work to a critical, interdisciplinary audience and to discuss other students work in a format closely resembling that of most academic conferences.
Seminar Series: Open Science Office: Research Skills Seminar Series0 ECTSCourse Type: elective courseCourse Number: Seminar SeriesCourse Content
Interested in learning about Open Science, reproducibility, and transparency in research and all things related to research data management? Then don’t wait, join our Research Skills Seminar Series and learn the skills needed to create an optimised and transparent research workflow that is embedded in Open Science and facilitates research data management. From conceptual issues like the replication crisis, to learning skills like pre-registration and wrangling data in R, this seminar series has got you covered and is here to support you.
- Analytical Skills/
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Finance
FIN 620: Behavioral Finance6 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: FIN 620Credits: 6Prerequisites
Formal: Module FIN 5XX
Recommended: Every student participating in this course should have completed the 2-semester finance module of the Mannheim Bachelor program (or equivalent courses) and the module Decisions Analysis. The lecture generally assumes basic knowledge in mathematics (calculus, optimization) and statistics (mean, variance, standard deviation).
Course Content
This course is for participants of FIN 901 only.
There is abundant evidence suggesting that the standard economic paradigm of rational investors does not adequately describe behavior in financial markets. Behavioral Finance examines how individuals' attitudes and behavior affect their financial decisions. This course reviews recent research on possible mispricing in financial markets due to the nature of psychological biases. Moreover the course deals with behavioral finance models explaining investor behavior or market anomalies when rational models provide no sufficient explanations. Topics will include among others overconfidence, prospect theory, heuristic driven biases and frame dependence.
Learning outcomes: Behavioral finance applies scientific research on human and social cognitive and emotional biases. After completing this course, students will be able to better understand economic decisions and how they affect market prices and returns. They will know how behavioral findings are integrated with neo-classical theory.
Form of assessment: Exam (60 minutes)
Exam date: 10 May 2023
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 16.02.23 – 30.03.23 Thursday 08:30 – 11:45 O 131 Download Tutorial Exercise 01.03.23 – 03.05.23 Wednesday 08:30 – 10:00 O 145 Download Workshop Exam 10.05.23 – 10.05.23 Wednesday 08:30 – 10:00 SN 163 Download FIN 803: Corporate Finance6 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: FIN 803Credits: 6Prerequisites
Formal: E 701, E 703, FIN 801
Recommended:
A first-year doctoral level course in microeconomics that covers game theory and information economics (signalling, adverse selection, equilibrium refinements)
A first-year doctoral level course in econometrics that covers estimation and testing theory.
Some familiarity with corporate finance and financial institutions at the level of a master’s level course is also assumed, but not essential. If you have no prior knowledge of corporate finance, then some chapters in an MBA-level textbook (e.g. Brealey, Myers, and Allen, Principles of Corporate Finance, 11th edition, McGraw Hill 2013; Berk and DeMarzo, Corporate Finance, 3rd edition, Pearson 2013) would be useful.
Course Content
This course is intended to enable students to understand and conduct research in corporate finance. It is taught at a first-year doctoral level.
Learning outcomes: The course combines two objectives. Firstly, participants learn the classic contributions to the theory of modern corporate finance and understand the main contributions to the field. Secondly, the course also introduces some of the main empirical contributions to the field and studies the main econometric and statistical techniques used in corporate finance. At the end of the course participants should be familiar with the main empirical and theoretical tools used in corporate finance.
Form of assessment: 24h-take-home exam
Schedule
Lecture 17.02.23 – 17.02.23 Friday 08:30 – 12:30 L9, 1–2, room 409 Download 10.03.23 – 10.03.23 Friday 08:30 – 12:30 L9, 1–2, room 409 Download 24.03.23 – 24.03.23 Friday 08:30 – 12:30 L9, 1–2, room 409 Download 28.04.23 – 28.04.23 Friday 08:30 – 12:30 L9, 1–2, 001 Download 05.05.23 – 05.05.23 Friday 08:30 – 12:30 L9, 1–2, room 409 Download 19.05.23 – 19.05.23 Friday 08:30 – 12:30 L9, 1–2, room 409 Download FIN 804: Econometrics of Financial Markets6 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: FIN 804Credits: 6Prerequisites
Recommended: Students should have successfully completed the 2-semester finance module of the Mannheim Bachelor program (or equivalent). It is recommended but not required that the students have participated in the Mathematics for Economists (E 700), Advanced Econometrics (FIN703) and the Asset Pricing (FIN 805) courses. Students need a good command of English and are expected to be able to read and discuss current research papers.
Course Content
The course provides a refresher of several econometric concepts such as endogeneity, identification and selection. The focus of the course will be on causal inference. We will discuss the Rubin causal model, instrumental variable regressions, regression discontinuity, difference-in-difference, matching, and fixed effects estimation. Particular attention will be given to underlying assumptions. Empirical applications from finance will be critically discussed.
Learning outcomes: The course provides students with a knowledge of several econometric concepts and their applications in finance and contributes to students’ ability to plan and carry out independent empirical research.
Form of assessment: Essay (40%), Presentation (60%)
Course dates:
- 20.03.23
- 17.04.23
- 24.04.23
- 08.05.23
- 15.05.23
- 22.05.23
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 20.03.23 – 22.05.23 Monday 10:00 – 13:30 L9, 1–2, room 210 Download FIN 901: Behavioral Finance2 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: FIN 901Credits: 2Course Content
FIN 901 is a continuative course of FIN 620. In this course students discuss and present current research topics in behavioral finance.
Learning outcomes: Students learn to critically discuss current research papers, i.e. data, methodology, and reasoning.
Form of assessment: Presentation
Course times will be arranged together with participating students.
Schedule
Lecture Kick-off 16.02.23 Thursday 11:45 – 12:45 O 131 Download FIN 910: Area Seminar FinanceECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: FIN 910Course Content
The course focuses on current research topics in the field of finance. Visiting researchers present their latest working papers and discuss their ideas with participating faculty and students. The presentations have workshop format and are similar in style to leading scientific conferences. The course introduces students to the variety of research methods that are currently popular in empirical and theoretical research.
Learning outcomes: Students will learn to follow-up with and discuss about current research topics in finance. The interaction with leading researchers will allow them to develop own research ideas and get insights into the design, execution and presentation of research projects.
Form of assessment: Oral Participation
Seminar Dates are announced here.
ACC 922: Decarbonization Seminar3 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: ACC 922Credits: 3Course Content
This course is aimed at doctoral students at GESS. The seminar hosts speakers from academia and industry to discuss latest advances and challenges associated with the transition towards a decarbonized energy economy. Topics covered include the economics and management of sustainability activities and clean energy technologies across all sectors of the economy with a particular focus on the energy sector, transportation services, and carbon-free manufacturing processes.
Course participants need to attend the seminar talks and the corresponding preparation sessions. In the preparation sessions, students are asked to present a paper and take the role of a discussant. Readings may additionally include recent theory or empirical papers.
Learning outcomes: The primary objective of the course is to introduce students to current research paradigms on the covered topics and to identify promising avenues for future research. Moreover, students receive a training on how to present and evaluate papers in seminars and conferences.
Form of assessment: Participation (20%), Paper presentations and discussions (80%)
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 13.02.23 – 22.05.23 Monday 17:15 – 18:45 O 129 Download IS 809: Advanced Data Science Lab II (Text Mining)6 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: IS 809Credits: 6Course Content
The goal of this lab exercises is to guide students through the typical steps of a scientific data-science project from problem formulation to data acquisition, selection of methods, analysis and presentation / documentation. The focus of this lab will be on analyzing textual data, for example large scale news or social media datasets, using techniques and methods from the domain of natural language processing. The students will present their results and write a paper about their research.
Learning Goals: Students will be equipped with practical experience with conducting scientific data-science projects. They will train their presentation skills, learn to communicate in research projects and receive feedback.
Examination: Written elaboration (90%) and presentation (10%)
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 15:30 – 17:00 L 15, 1–6, 314–315 Download Tutorial Exercise 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 17:15 – 18:45 L 15, 1–6, 314–315 Download MET 931: Topics in Advanced Sampling Methods: Design and Causal Inference5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: MET 931Credits: 5Prerequisites
The reading course is aimed at Ph.D. students in or beyond their second year to support them during their research phase. 1st year PhD students are welcomed to attend the class as well.
Recommended: Knowledge of basic statistics and prior experience with R or Stata is helpful, but not necessary.
Course Content
This reading course provides a hands-on and paper-based approach to understanding and analyzing data. For many projects, collection of new data or experimental designs are the only way to answer a research question or to provide the decisive complementary evidence. Different ways to collect data can have important implications for model estimation and evaluation, parameter inference, and policy conclusions. Standard econometric methods start from assumptions about the sampling procedure and try to cope with the limitations of a given dataset. Instead, we start at the design stage and examine the interplay between sampling and experimental methods, statistical inference and estimation of causal effects. We will use the German Business Panel as point in case and implement cutting-edge methods to gain insights into the causal mechanisms behind reported outcomes. In each session, one of the participants will present a research paper, which we will discuss in light of concrete implementation at trial scale. Participants are encouraged to present research that is valuable for their own thesis or may be assigned to present a topic.
In addition to presenting a paper and participating in the discussion, students are expected to write a short technical report that summarizes the methods and implications in a way useful for peers who want to use the newly collected data or learn about experimental results.
Learning outcomes:
The specific applications cover a broad set of skills with a focus on design of questionnaires and survey experiments, data analysis and quantitative methods, classification, inference, writing of own reports, and opportunities for own research.
- Analytical Skills/
Problem-Solving: Students will effectively visualize, conceptualize, articulate, and solve or address problems, with available or newly generated information, through experimentation and observation, mainly using statistical and programming tools. - Critical Thinking: Students will apply empirical analysis to everyday problems in data collection and analysis helping them to understand events, evaluate specific methods, compare arguments with different conclusions to a specific issue, and assess the role played by assumptions.
- Quantitative Reasoning: Students will understand how to design collection and analysis of empirical evidence. Specifically, they may obtain and/
or collect relevant data, develop empirical evidence using appropriate statistical techniques, and interpret the results of such analyses. - Specialized Knowledge and Practical Application: Students will develop deeper analytical, critical, and quantitative skills in specialized areas by applying programming skills and statistical concepts to real world situations.
- Interdisciplinary Knowledge: Participants will broaden their knowledge by studying methods used in economics, sociology, political science, and other fields.
- Communication and Leadership: Participants will build presentation and discussion skills, ensuring they are prepared to navigate diverse audiences and situations. Collaborations of participants prepares joint projects.
- Preparation of Own Research: Projects will be valuable for own research projects; applications provide best practice examples.
Form of assessment: Paper (technical report) (optional), Presentation (50 %), Class Participation (50 %)
The course is also part of the TRR 266 Accounting for Transparency
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 10:15 – 11:45 B 144, A5, 6 – B Download RES: Financial Economics of Climate and Sustainability (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RESCredits: 5Prerequisites
The course will assume that participants have a background in core graduate‐level finance. The course will cover topics from a variety of subfields in finance (asset pricing, financial intermediation, household finance, corporate finance). The introductory block of three classes is intended to orient students to the science of climate change as well as to refresh key concepts from economics and finance; the remaining classes will dive into detail on current research in different subfield. We will conclude with a discussion of open topics in this field. We expect that the course will be useful to doctoral students in finance, economics, and accounting. As a global class, we will largely be on Zoom. Beyond weekly preparation and participation, students will be expected to write a paper either laying out a potential research topic or synthesizing a set of related papers that were not discussed in class.
Course Content
The purpose of the course is to (a) introduce graduate students to questions and methods in the rapidly evolving fields of climate/
sustainable finance; (b) connect researchers from across the globe interested in this topic to stimulate more rigorous, relevant, and collaborative work. Addressing climate change demands changes in natural, social, and economic systems and will require greater collaboration. In that spirit, this course is being offered by a team of professors from different schools and universities across the globe. Each instructor will deliver one or more lectures and there will be students from a number of different schools. Our teaching group consists of current and former AFA and EFA presidents and some of the leading climate finance scholars, including Laura Starks (current AFA President), Patrick Bolton (former AFA President), Stefano Giglio, Marcin Kacperczyk (former EFA President), Caroline Flammer, Geoff Heal, Stefan Reichelstein, Ben Caldecott and Peter Tufano.
Assessment
Beyond weekly preparation and participation, students will be expected to write a paper either laying out a potential research topic or synthesizing a set of papers related to Climate Change and Sustainability that were not discussed in class.
This course starts early (January 24), please make sure to register until December 20, 2022!
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 24.01.23 – 11.04.23 Tuesday 17:00 – 19:00 online (Zoom) Download RES: New Perspectives on Economics and Politics (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RESCredits: 5Course Content
We live in interesting times both, economically and politically. Many observers point to crises and uncertain developments in the economic and political world. Making sense of the nature of these challenges and pointing toward economic and political solutions for the future requires new perspectives. This is a course about the big and bold questions in economics and politics. How can or should economics and politics be organized to best serve society? What does it mean to put humans as they really are at the center of economic and political thinking? What role do morals and values, or dignity and respect, play for the way economics and politics work? What are the implications of digitalization for capitalism and freedom?
We will try to come to grips with these questions by reading and discussing four key books on various new perspectives at the intersection between economics and politics. The aim of this course is to go as deep as we can and to get as much out of an in-class discussion of the material as possible. Willingness to acquire and read the books is a must. If you are unsure about whether or not you would want to take on the commitment of reading four books in one semester then this course is probably not the right one for you.
Students need to be willing to read books, form their own opinions on them, and elaborate on and defend their own views in group discussions and a final essay.Required Readings
Friedman, M. (1963). Capitalism and Freedom. University of Chicago Press.
Greene, J. (2015). Moral Tribes. Atlantic Books.
Sandel, M. J. (2020). The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?. Penguin UK.
Zuboff, S. (2016). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. PublicAffairs.
Schedule
Seminar 24.02.23 – 24.02.23 Friday 13:45 – 15:15 D002 in B6, 27–29 Download 21.04.23 – 02.06.23 Friday 10:15 – 13:30 D002 in B6, 27–29 Download RES / IntRes: Interdisciplinary Research in the Economic and Social Sciences (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RES / IntResCredits: 5Prerequisites
This course is exclusively geared towards students who are currently doctoral students at the GESS of the University of Mannheim. It is intended for beginning as well as advanced doctoral students. This course is an elective course and counts as a 'Bridge Course'. Maximum number of participants is 15. If the course is not fully booked, non-GESS students from Business, Economics, or the Social Sciences or from other related disciplines can enroll. As a necessary requirement you need to make a working paper draft available to all of us that you present in our ‘Mini Research Day’.
Course Content
This course will introduce students to interdisciplinary research and aims at initiating projects of an interdisciplinary nature, thereby fostering the interdisciplinary spirit of the graduate students at the GESS. This year, the course will be given by one senior researchers from each center of the GESS, i.e., you will have the unique opportunity to receive truly interdisciplinary feedback on your work from three different angles.
The course consists of four core building blocks:
1. Kick-Off & Introductory Session: What is interdisciplinary research.
After a short introduction on the nature and success of interdisciplinary research as well as the structure of the course by the instructors, each participant will shortly (max 5 min, 2–3 slides per person) present the core idea of an interdisciplinary paper published in a top journal in her field. Please browse the recent issues of the most important journals in your field to find such a paper. Note that interdisciplinarity can have various aspects in this context (e.g., methods developed for a specific purpose in one field being used in another context, using a theoretical framework from one area to better understand a research question in another, using data generated in another context for a research project, ...). Your presentation should make clear, what the interdisciplinary innovation of the paper is. Alternatively, you can also present a dataset or a methodology and highlight how students from other GESS centers might take advantage of it.
2. Mini-Research-Day
The second component of the course is a ‘Mini-Research-Day’ which is intended to introduce the kind of topics you are working on to other course participants. You will give a presentation on a current working paper or research project of yours and you will discuss a paper/
presentation from one of your fellow students from another field (10 min presentation, 5 min discussion, 10 min Q&A). 3. Science Speed Dating
The science speed dating event – organized by your student representatives – involves short bilateral talks between participants with the later possibility to match research interests. All course participants will participate in the speed dating event and are asked to develop at least one collaborative research proposal with a student from another field (preferably from our course).
4. Project Presentations & Writeups
This proposal will be presented by groups of 2 (in exceptional cases 3) students in a final meeting about four weeks after the speed dating event. Each research team will also prepare a short write-up of their proposal (max. 5 pages, incl. references) explaining the intended contribution to the literature, the interdisciplinary aspects of the project and the proposed procedure how to implement the project to be handed in two weeks after the presentation. Moreover, you will also discuss another team project.
Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, students will
- have gotten in touch with a variety of disciplinary research methods and perspectives from different fields.
- critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these research methods.
- identify and develop an interdisciplinary research proposal and communicate their ideas clearly in both, a presentation and in writing.
- have received feedback from senior researchers from all three centers.
- have practiced to present their work to a critical, interdisciplinary audience and to discuss other students work in a format closely resembling that of most academic conferences.
Assessment
This is a pass/
fail course. To successfully pass the course, each student has to: - Give a short paper presentation in the introductory session.
- Present, discuss, and participate in the ‘Mini Research Day’. An extended abstract and the set of slides that will be used for the presentation or (preferably) a working paper draft needs to be provided by each presenting student to the assigned discussant a week before the research day.
- Participate at the science speed dating event.
- Present your interdisciplinary research proposal (group of two students) and subsequently hand in a write-up.
- Full and active participation in all four building blocks is necessary to pass the course.
- The best interdisciplinary proposal will win a prize.
Please register by the registration deadline given below, by sending a title and an abstract of the research project/
topic you would like to present during the ‘Mini Research Day’ to gess.registrationuni-mannheim.de. Please indicate in your e-mail your fields of interest and mention up to three broad other fields (e.g. Marketing, Macroeconomics, Social Psychology, Political Science) you would like to collaborate with. Please note that the course is limited to a maximum of 15 participants, and seats will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
Course dates
- January 31st, 2023 – Course Registration Deadline
- February 15th, 2023, 10:00 – 14:00 – Kick-Off Meeting, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- February 23th – Deadline to send paper to discussant (and in cc to: gess.office@uni-mannheim.de)
- March 2nd, 2023, 10:00 – 19:00 – Mini Research Day, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- March 30th, 2023, exact time TBA – Science Speed Dating event, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- May 25, 2023, 10:00 – 19:00 – Presentation of Research Proposal, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- June 8th, 2023 – Deadline to hand in interdisciplinary research proposal (to: gess.office@uni-mannheim.de)
Competences acquired
Upon successful completion of this course, students will
- have gotten in touch with a variety of disciplinary research methods and perspectives from different fields
- critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these research methods
- identify and develop an interdisciplinary research proposal and communicate their ideas clearly in both, a presentation and in writing.
- have received feedback from senior researchers from all three centers.
- have practiced to present their work to a critical, interdisciplinary audience and to discuss other students work in a format closely resembling that of most academic conferences.
Seminar Series: Open Science Office: Research Skills Seminar Series0 ECTSCourse Type: elective courseCourse Number: Seminar SeriesCourse Content
Interested in learning about Open Science, reproducibility, and transparency in research and all things related to research data management? Then don’t wait, join our Research Skills Seminar Series and learn the skills needed to create an optimised and transparent research workflow that is embedded in Open Science and facilitates research data management. From conceptual issues like the replication crisis, to learning skills like pre-registration and wrangling data in R, this seminar series has got you covered and is here to support you.
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Information Systems
IS / OPM 910: Area Seminar Information Systems and Operations ManagementECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: IS / OPM 910Course Content
The course focuses on current research topics in the field of information systems and operations management. Visiting researchers present their latest working papers and discuss their ideas with participating faculty and students. The course introduces students to the variety of research methods that are currently popular in empirical and theoretical research.
Learning outcomes: Students will learn to follow-up with and discuss about current research topics in information systems and operations management. The interaction with leading researchers will allow them to develop own research ideas and get insights into the design, execution and presentation of research projects.
Examination: Oral Participation
Seminar Dates will be announced via email to registered participants
IS 903: Information Systems Theories8 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: IS 903Credits: 8Course Content
Knowledge creation and dissemination are key objectives of scientific endeavors. However, what constitutes knowledge is a highly contested issue. Certainly, at the core of social science disciplines, knowledge is inseparable from theory. Indeed, to seek theory-guided explanations of real-world phenomenon is what separates scholars from consultants, who seek to change reality without explaining it, and from journalists, who report reality but do not explain it. The pursuit of theory drives us to understand reality—to discover truth—before making recommendations on how to change reality. To pursue theory is to pursue knowledge; to pursue knowledge is to advance humanity. Consequently, many scholars emphasize the centrality of theories for any scientific endeavor—a thought widely reflected in many disciplines from the natural to the social sciences. While attention to theoretical work has been at the heart of the Information Systems (IS) discipline for a long time, the focus on theoretical debates and genuine conceptual contributions has been picking up recently. This is reflected by a number of journal sections and conference tracks dedicated to advancing theory and theorizing in IS research just as much as in many authors’ experiences during the reviews of their work.
This course invites participants to join the ongoing discourse on theories and theorizing in the IS research community. It is designed to help participants build and extend their understanding of the nature and role of theory in IS research. Through discussions and analyses of current theoretical developments in the IS discipline and some of its main reference disciplines, participants will engage with theory and advance their skills of crafting their own theoretical contributions and evaluating those of others.
Learning outcomes:
- Understand the importance and usefulness of theory in research
- Learn theorizing strategies
- Learn to evaluate theoretical contribution in research
- Develop basic theorizing skills
- Identify a theory that could be applicable to the participants’ own research programs
Form of assessment: Written elaboration 60%, presentation 20%, discussion 20%
There will be an introductory meeting on 22nd of February, afterwards, course dates and times will be arranged together with the attending students.
Schedule
Lecture Kick-off Meeting 22.02.23 – 22.02.23 Wednesday 10:15 – 11:45 L 15, 1–6, room 714–715 Download ACC 922: Decarbonization Seminar3 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: ACC 922Credits: 3Course Content
This course is aimed at doctoral students at GESS. The seminar hosts speakers from academia and industry to discuss latest advances and challenges associated with the transition towards a decarbonized energy economy. Topics covered include the economics and management of sustainability activities and clean energy technologies across all sectors of the economy with a particular focus on the energy sector, transportation services, and carbon-free manufacturing processes.
Course participants need to attend the seminar talks and the corresponding preparation sessions. In the preparation sessions, students are asked to present a paper and take the role of a discussant. Readings may additionally include recent theory or empirical papers.
Learning outcomes: The primary objective of the course is to introduce students to current research paradigms on the covered topics and to identify promising avenues for future research. Moreover, students receive a training on how to present and evaluate papers in seminars and conferences.
Form of assessment: Participation (20%), Paper presentations and discussions (80%)
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 13.02.23 – 22.05.23 Monday 17:15 – 18:45 O 129 Download IS 809: Advanced Data Science Lab II (Text Mining)6 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: IS 809Credits: 6Course Content
The goal of this lab exercises is to guide students through the typical steps of a scientific data-science project from problem formulation to data acquisition, selection of methods, analysis and presentation / documentation. The focus of this lab will be on analyzing textual data, for example large scale news or social media datasets, using techniques and methods from the domain of natural language processing. The students will present their results and write a paper about their research.
Learning Goals: Students will be equipped with practical experience with conducting scientific data-science projects. They will train their presentation skills, learn to communicate in research projects and receive feedback.
Examination: Written elaboration (90%) and presentation (10%)
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 15:30 – 17:00 L 15, 1–6, 314–315 Download Tutorial Exercise 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 17:15 – 18:45 L 15, 1–6, 314–315 Download MET 931: Topics in Advanced Sampling Methods: Design and Causal Inference5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: MET 931Credits: 5Prerequisites
The reading course is aimed at Ph.D. students in or beyond their second year to support them during their research phase. 1st year PhD students are welcomed to attend the class as well.
Recommended: Knowledge of basic statistics and prior experience with R or Stata is helpful, but not necessary.
Course Content
This reading course provides a hands-on and paper-based approach to understanding and analyzing data. For many projects, collection of new data or experimental designs are the only way to answer a research question or to provide the decisive complementary evidence. Different ways to collect data can have important implications for model estimation and evaluation, parameter inference, and policy conclusions. Standard econometric methods start from assumptions about the sampling procedure and try to cope with the limitations of a given dataset. Instead, we start at the design stage and examine the interplay between sampling and experimental methods, statistical inference and estimation of causal effects. We will use the German Business Panel as point in case and implement cutting-edge methods to gain insights into the causal mechanisms behind reported outcomes. In each session, one of the participants will present a research paper, which we will discuss in light of concrete implementation at trial scale. Participants are encouraged to present research that is valuable for their own thesis or may be assigned to present a topic.
In addition to presenting a paper and participating in the discussion, students are expected to write a short technical report that summarizes the methods and implications in a way useful for peers who want to use the newly collected data or learn about experimental results.
Learning outcomes:
The specific applications cover a broad set of skills with a focus on design of questionnaires and survey experiments, data analysis and quantitative methods, classification, inference, writing of own reports, and opportunities for own research.
- Analytical Skills/
Problem-Solving: Students will effectively visualize, conceptualize, articulate, and solve or address problems, with available or newly generated information, through experimentation and observation, mainly using statistical and programming tools. - Critical Thinking: Students will apply empirical analysis to everyday problems in data collection and analysis helping them to understand events, evaluate specific methods, compare arguments with different conclusions to a specific issue, and assess the role played by assumptions.
- Quantitative Reasoning: Students will understand how to design collection and analysis of empirical evidence. Specifically, they may obtain and/
or collect relevant data, develop empirical evidence using appropriate statistical techniques, and interpret the results of such analyses. - Specialized Knowledge and Practical Application: Students will develop deeper analytical, critical, and quantitative skills in specialized areas by applying programming skills and statistical concepts to real world situations.
- Interdisciplinary Knowledge: Participants will broaden their knowledge by studying methods used in economics, sociology, political science, and other fields.
- Communication and Leadership: Participants will build presentation and discussion skills, ensuring they are prepared to navigate diverse audiences and situations. Collaborations of participants prepares joint projects.
- Preparation of Own Research: Projects will be valuable for own research projects; applications provide best practice examples.
Form of assessment: Paper (technical report) (optional), Presentation (50 %), Class Participation (50 %)
The course is also part of the TRR 266 Accounting for Transparency
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 10:15 – 11:45 B 144, A5, 6 – B Download RES: Financial Economics of Climate and Sustainability (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RESCredits: 5Prerequisites
The course will assume that participants have a background in core graduate‐level finance. The course will cover topics from a variety of subfields in finance (asset pricing, financial intermediation, household finance, corporate finance). The introductory block of three classes is intended to orient students to the science of climate change as well as to refresh key concepts from economics and finance; the remaining classes will dive into detail on current research in different subfield. We will conclude with a discussion of open topics in this field. We expect that the course will be useful to doctoral students in finance, economics, and accounting. As a global class, we will largely be on Zoom. Beyond weekly preparation and participation, students will be expected to write a paper either laying out a potential research topic or synthesizing a set of related papers that were not discussed in class.
Course Content
The purpose of the course is to (a) introduce graduate students to questions and methods in the rapidly evolving fields of climate/
sustainable finance; (b) connect researchers from across the globe interested in this topic to stimulate more rigorous, relevant, and collaborative work. Addressing climate change demands changes in natural, social, and economic systems and will require greater collaboration. In that spirit, this course is being offered by a team of professors from different schools and universities across the globe. Each instructor will deliver one or more lectures and there will be students from a number of different schools. Our teaching group consists of current and former AFA and EFA presidents and some of the leading climate finance scholars, including Laura Starks (current AFA President), Patrick Bolton (former AFA President), Stefano Giglio, Marcin Kacperczyk (former EFA President), Caroline Flammer, Geoff Heal, Stefan Reichelstein, Ben Caldecott and Peter Tufano.
Assessment
Beyond weekly preparation and participation, students will be expected to write a paper either laying out a potential research topic or synthesizing a set of papers related to Climate Change and Sustainability that were not discussed in class.
This course starts early (January 24), please make sure to register until December 20, 2022!
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 24.01.23 – 11.04.23 Tuesday 17:00 – 19:00 online (Zoom) Download RES: New Perspectives on Economics and Politics (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RESCredits: 5Course Content
We live in interesting times both, economically and politically. Many observers point to crises and uncertain developments in the economic and political world. Making sense of the nature of these challenges and pointing toward economic and political solutions for the future requires new perspectives. This is a course about the big and bold questions in economics and politics. How can or should economics and politics be organized to best serve society? What does it mean to put humans as they really are at the center of economic and political thinking? What role do morals and values, or dignity and respect, play for the way economics and politics work? What are the implications of digitalization for capitalism and freedom?
We will try to come to grips with these questions by reading and discussing four key books on various new perspectives at the intersection between economics and politics. The aim of this course is to go as deep as we can and to get as much out of an in-class discussion of the material as possible. Willingness to acquire and read the books is a must. If you are unsure about whether or not you would want to take on the commitment of reading four books in one semester then this course is probably not the right one for you.
Students need to be willing to read books, form their own opinions on them, and elaborate on and defend their own views in group discussions and a final essay.Required Readings
Friedman, M. (1963). Capitalism and Freedom. University of Chicago Press.
Greene, J. (2015). Moral Tribes. Atlantic Books.
Sandel, M. J. (2020). The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?. Penguin UK.
Zuboff, S. (2016). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. PublicAffairs.
Schedule
Seminar 24.02.23 – 24.02.23 Friday 13:45 – 15:15 D002 in B6, 27–29 Download 21.04.23 – 02.06.23 Friday 10:15 – 13:30 D002 in B6, 27–29 Download RES / IntRes: Interdisciplinary Research in the Economic and Social Sciences (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RES / IntResCredits: 5Prerequisites
This course is exclusively geared towards students who are currently doctoral students at the GESS of the University of Mannheim. It is intended for beginning as well as advanced doctoral students. This course is an elective course and counts as a 'Bridge Course'. Maximum number of participants is 15. If the course is not fully booked, non-GESS students from Business, Economics, or the Social Sciences or from other related disciplines can enroll. As a necessary requirement you need to make a working paper draft available to all of us that you present in our ‘Mini Research Day’.
Course Content
This course will introduce students to interdisciplinary research and aims at initiating projects of an interdisciplinary nature, thereby fostering the interdisciplinary spirit of the graduate students at the GESS. This year, the course will be given by one senior researchers from each center of the GESS, i.e., you will have the unique opportunity to receive truly interdisciplinary feedback on your work from three different angles.
The course consists of four core building blocks:
1. Kick-Off & Introductory Session: What is interdisciplinary research.
After a short introduction on the nature and success of interdisciplinary research as well as the structure of the course by the instructors, each participant will shortly (max 5 min, 2–3 slides per person) present the core idea of an interdisciplinary paper published in a top journal in her field. Please browse the recent issues of the most important journals in your field to find such a paper. Note that interdisciplinarity can have various aspects in this context (e.g., methods developed for a specific purpose in one field being used in another context, using a theoretical framework from one area to better understand a research question in another, using data generated in another context for a research project, ...). Your presentation should make clear, what the interdisciplinary innovation of the paper is. Alternatively, you can also present a dataset or a methodology and highlight how students from other GESS centers might take advantage of it.
2. Mini-Research-Day
The second component of the course is a ‘Mini-Research-Day’ which is intended to introduce the kind of topics you are working on to other course participants. You will give a presentation on a current working paper or research project of yours and you will discuss a paper/
presentation from one of your fellow students from another field (10 min presentation, 5 min discussion, 10 min Q&A). 3. Science Speed Dating
The science speed dating event – organized by your student representatives – involves short bilateral talks between participants with the later possibility to match research interests. All course participants will participate in the speed dating event and are asked to develop at least one collaborative research proposal with a student from another field (preferably from our course).
4. Project Presentations & Writeups
This proposal will be presented by groups of 2 (in exceptional cases 3) students in a final meeting about four weeks after the speed dating event. Each research team will also prepare a short write-up of their proposal (max. 5 pages, incl. references) explaining the intended contribution to the literature, the interdisciplinary aspects of the project and the proposed procedure how to implement the project to be handed in two weeks after the presentation. Moreover, you will also discuss another team project.
Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, students will
- have gotten in touch with a variety of disciplinary research methods and perspectives from different fields.
- critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these research methods.
- identify and develop an interdisciplinary research proposal and communicate their ideas clearly in both, a presentation and in writing.
- have received feedback from senior researchers from all three centers.
- have practiced to present their work to a critical, interdisciplinary audience and to discuss other students work in a format closely resembling that of most academic conferences.
Assessment
This is a pass/
fail course. To successfully pass the course, each student has to: - Give a short paper presentation in the introductory session.
- Present, discuss, and participate in the ‘Mini Research Day’. An extended abstract and the set of slides that will be used for the presentation or (preferably) a working paper draft needs to be provided by each presenting student to the assigned discussant a week before the research day.
- Participate at the science speed dating event.
- Present your interdisciplinary research proposal (group of two students) and subsequently hand in a write-up.
- Full and active participation in all four building blocks is necessary to pass the course.
- The best interdisciplinary proposal will win a prize.
Please register by the registration deadline given below, by sending a title and an abstract of the research project/
topic you would like to present during the ‘Mini Research Day’ to gess.registrationuni-mannheim.de. Please indicate in your e-mail your fields of interest and mention up to three broad other fields (e.g. Marketing, Macroeconomics, Social Psychology, Political Science) you would like to collaborate with. Please note that the course is limited to a maximum of 15 participants, and seats will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
Course dates
- January 31st, 2023 – Course Registration Deadline
- February 15th, 2023, 10:00 – 14:00 – Kick-Off Meeting, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- February 23th – Deadline to send paper to discussant (and in cc to: gess.office@uni-mannheim.de)
- March 2nd, 2023, 10:00 – 19:00 – Mini Research Day, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- March 30th, 2023, exact time TBA – Science Speed Dating event, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- May 25, 2023, 10:00 – 19:00 – Presentation of Research Proposal, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- June 8th, 2023 – Deadline to hand in interdisciplinary research proposal (to: gess.office@uni-mannheim.de)
Competences acquired
Upon successful completion of this course, students will
- have gotten in touch with a variety of disciplinary research methods and perspectives from different fields
- critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these research methods
- identify and develop an interdisciplinary research proposal and communicate their ideas clearly in both, a presentation and in writing.
- have received feedback from senior researchers from all three centers.
- have practiced to present their work to a critical, interdisciplinary audience and to discuss other students work in a format closely resembling that of most academic conferences.
Seminar Series: Open Science Office: Research Skills Seminar Series0 ECTSCourse Type: elective courseCourse Number: Seminar SeriesCourse Content
Interested in learning about Open Science, reproducibility, and transparency in research and all things related to research data management? Then don’t wait, join our Research Skills Seminar Series and learn the skills needed to create an optimised and transparent research workflow that is embedded in Open Science and facilitates research data management. From conceptual issues like the replication crisis, to learning skills like pre-registration and wrangling data in R, this seminar series has got you covered and is here to support you.
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Management
MAN 801: Advances in Entrepreneurship and Management Research6 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: MAN 801Credits: 6Course Content
In this Ph.D. course we will focus on selected advanced and hot topics in entrepreneurship and management research. We will learn about the theoretical foundations as well as about empirical translations and empirical evidence that is linked to each of the topic areas. This class will cover the theory of organizational evolution of firms and industries, neoinstitutional theory and network theory and their relations to entrepreneurship and management. We also discuss sociological, and psychological grounded approaches to entrepreneurship in order to understand recent phenomena in entrepreneurship like migrant entrepreneurship, female entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial orientation of family firms, or regional clustering of entrepreneurship activities.
Learning outcomes: The course aims at enabling students to understand advanced concepts in entrepreneurship and management research, identify appropriate theoretical concepts and lenses and apply them properly to their individual research topics.
Form of assessment: Essay 80 %, presentation 20 %
Please note that the meeting on 3 May 2023 starts half an hour later (6pm-8pm)
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 22.03.23 – 31.05.23 Wednesday 17:30 – 19:30 L9, 1–2, room 210 Download MAN 804: Advances in Strategic Management6 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: MAN 804Credits: 6Course Content
The seminar serves the purpose of familiarizing students with the most relevant theoretical perspectives applied in strategic management research. Besides a review of the current state-of-the-art, we will engage in a discussion about the most prevalent theoretical lenses, their origin, core assumptions and conceptual strengths and weaknesses.
Learning outcomes:
- Develop an advanced understanding of the most established theories applied in strategic management research
- Learn how to develop a sound theoretical reasoning in the front-end of empirical management studies
- Understand what it means to build a substantial theoretical contribution
Form of assessment: Essay 50%, presentation 50%
Schedule
Seminar Kick-off Meeting 14.02.23 – 14.02.23 Tuesday 10:00 – 12:00 L5, 009 Roche Forum Download Block Seminar 08.05.23 – 09.05.23 Monday and Tuesday 09:00 – 18:00 L5, 4, 207–209 Download MAN 910: Area Seminar ManagementECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: MAN 910Course Content
The course focuses on current research topics in the field of management. Visiting researchers present their latest working papers and discuss their ideas with participating faculty and students. The course introduces students to the variety of research methods that are currently popular in empirical and theoretical research.
Learning outcomes: Students will learn to follow-up with and discuss about current research topics in management. The interaction with leading researchers will allow them to develop own research ideas and get insights into the design, execution and presentation of research projects.
Examination: Oral Participation
Seminar Dates will be announced via email to registered participants
ACC 922: Decarbonization Seminar3 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: ACC 922Credits: 3Course Content
This course is aimed at doctoral students at GESS. The seminar hosts speakers from academia and industry to discuss latest advances and challenges associated with the transition towards a decarbonized energy economy. Topics covered include the economics and management of sustainability activities and clean energy technologies across all sectors of the economy with a particular focus on the energy sector, transportation services, and carbon-free manufacturing processes.
Course participants need to attend the seminar talks and the corresponding preparation sessions. In the preparation sessions, students are asked to present a paper and take the role of a discussant. Readings may additionally include recent theory or empirical papers.
Learning outcomes: The primary objective of the course is to introduce students to current research paradigms on the covered topics and to identify promising avenues for future research. Moreover, students receive a training on how to present and evaluate papers in seminars and conferences.
Form of assessment: Participation (20%), Paper presentations and discussions (80%)
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 13.02.23 – 22.05.23 Monday 17:15 – 18:45 O 129 Download IS 809: Advanced Data Science Lab II (Text Mining)6 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: IS 809Credits: 6Course Content
The goal of this lab exercises is to guide students through the typical steps of a scientific data-science project from problem formulation to data acquisition, selection of methods, analysis and presentation / documentation. The focus of this lab will be on analyzing textual data, for example large scale news or social media datasets, using techniques and methods from the domain of natural language processing. The students will present their results and write a paper about their research.
Learning Goals: Students will be equipped with practical experience with conducting scientific data-science projects. They will train their presentation skills, learn to communicate in research projects and receive feedback.
Examination: Written elaboration (90%) and presentation (10%)
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 15:30 – 17:00 L 15, 1–6, 314–315 Download Tutorial Exercise 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 17:15 – 18:45 L 15, 1–6, 314–315 Download MET 931: Topics in Advanced Sampling Methods: Design and Causal Inference5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: MET 931Credits: 5Prerequisites
The reading course is aimed at Ph.D. students in or beyond their second year to support them during their research phase. 1st year PhD students are welcomed to attend the class as well.
Recommended: Knowledge of basic statistics and prior experience with R or Stata is helpful, but not necessary.
Course Content
This reading course provides a hands-on and paper-based approach to understanding and analyzing data. For many projects, collection of new data or experimental designs are the only way to answer a research question or to provide the decisive complementary evidence. Different ways to collect data can have important implications for model estimation and evaluation, parameter inference, and policy conclusions. Standard econometric methods start from assumptions about the sampling procedure and try to cope with the limitations of a given dataset. Instead, we start at the design stage and examine the interplay between sampling and experimental methods, statistical inference and estimation of causal effects. We will use the German Business Panel as point in case and implement cutting-edge methods to gain insights into the causal mechanisms behind reported outcomes. In each session, one of the participants will present a research paper, which we will discuss in light of concrete implementation at trial scale. Participants are encouraged to present research that is valuable for their own thesis or may be assigned to present a topic.
In addition to presenting a paper and participating in the discussion, students are expected to write a short technical report that summarizes the methods and implications in a way useful for peers who want to use the newly collected data or learn about experimental results.
Learning outcomes:
The specific applications cover a broad set of skills with a focus on design of questionnaires and survey experiments, data analysis and quantitative methods, classification, inference, writing of own reports, and opportunities for own research.
- Analytical Skills/
Problem-Solving: Students will effectively visualize, conceptualize, articulate, and solve or address problems, with available or newly generated information, through experimentation and observation, mainly using statistical and programming tools. - Critical Thinking: Students will apply empirical analysis to everyday problems in data collection and analysis helping them to understand events, evaluate specific methods, compare arguments with different conclusions to a specific issue, and assess the role played by assumptions.
- Quantitative Reasoning: Students will understand how to design collection and analysis of empirical evidence. Specifically, they may obtain and/
or collect relevant data, develop empirical evidence using appropriate statistical techniques, and interpret the results of such analyses. - Specialized Knowledge and Practical Application: Students will develop deeper analytical, critical, and quantitative skills in specialized areas by applying programming skills and statistical concepts to real world situations.
- Interdisciplinary Knowledge: Participants will broaden their knowledge by studying methods used in economics, sociology, political science, and other fields.
- Communication and Leadership: Participants will build presentation and discussion skills, ensuring they are prepared to navigate diverse audiences and situations. Collaborations of participants prepares joint projects.
- Preparation of Own Research: Projects will be valuable for own research projects; applications provide best practice examples.
Form of assessment: Paper (technical report) (optional), Presentation (50 %), Class Participation (50 %)
The course is also part of the TRR 266 Accounting for Transparency
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 10:15 – 11:45 B 144, A5, 6 – B Download RES: Financial Economics of Climate and Sustainability (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RESCredits: 5Prerequisites
The course will assume that participants have a background in core graduate‐level finance. The course will cover topics from a variety of subfields in finance (asset pricing, financial intermediation, household finance, corporate finance). The introductory block of three classes is intended to orient students to the science of climate change as well as to refresh key concepts from economics and finance; the remaining classes will dive into detail on current research in different subfield. We will conclude with a discussion of open topics in this field. We expect that the course will be useful to doctoral students in finance, economics, and accounting. As a global class, we will largely be on Zoom. Beyond weekly preparation and participation, students will be expected to write a paper either laying out a potential research topic or synthesizing a set of related papers that were not discussed in class.
Course Content
The purpose of the course is to (a) introduce graduate students to questions and methods in the rapidly evolving fields of climate/
sustainable finance; (b) connect researchers from across the globe interested in this topic to stimulate more rigorous, relevant, and collaborative work. Addressing climate change demands changes in natural, social, and economic systems and will require greater collaboration. In that spirit, this course is being offered by a team of professors from different schools and universities across the globe. Each instructor will deliver one or more lectures and there will be students from a number of different schools. Our teaching group consists of current and former AFA and EFA presidents and some of the leading climate finance scholars, including Laura Starks (current AFA President), Patrick Bolton (former AFA President), Stefano Giglio, Marcin Kacperczyk (former EFA President), Caroline Flammer, Geoff Heal, Stefan Reichelstein, Ben Caldecott and Peter Tufano.
Assessment
Beyond weekly preparation and participation, students will be expected to write a paper either laying out a potential research topic or synthesizing a set of papers related to Climate Change and Sustainability that were not discussed in class.
This course starts early (January 24), please make sure to register until December 20, 2022!
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 24.01.23 – 11.04.23 Tuesday 17:00 – 19:00 online (Zoom) Download RES: New Perspectives on Economics and Politics (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RESCredits: 5Course Content
We live in interesting times both, economically and politically. Many observers point to crises and uncertain developments in the economic and political world. Making sense of the nature of these challenges and pointing toward economic and political solutions for the future requires new perspectives. This is a course about the big and bold questions in economics and politics. How can or should economics and politics be organized to best serve society? What does it mean to put humans as they really are at the center of economic and political thinking? What role do morals and values, or dignity and respect, play for the way economics and politics work? What are the implications of digitalization for capitalism and freedom?
We will try to come to grips with these questions by reading and discussing four key books on various new perspectives at the intersection between economics and politics. The aim of this course is to go as deep as we can and to get as much out of an in-class discussion of the material as possible. Willingness to acquire and read the books is a must. If you are unsure about whether or not you would want to take on the commitment of reading four books in one semester then this course is probably not the right one for you.
Students need to be willing to read books, form their own opinions on them, and elaborate on and defend their own views in group discussions and a final essay.Required Readings
Friedman, M. (1963). Capitalism and Freedom. University of Chicago Press.
Greene, J. (2015). Moral Tribes. Atlantic Books.
Sandel, M. J. (2020). The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?. Penguin UK.
Zuboff, S. (2016). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. PublicAffairs.
Schedule
Seminar 24.02.23 – 24.02.23 Friday 13:45 – 15:15 D002 in B6, 27–29 Download 21.04.23 – 02.06.23 Friday 10:15 – 13:30 D002 in B6, 27–29 Download RES / IntRes: Interdisciplinary Research in the Economic and Social Sciences (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RES / IntResCredits: 5Prerequisites
This course is exclusively geared towards students who are currently doctoral students at the GESS of the University of Mannheim. It is intended for beginning as well as advanced doctoral students. This course is an elective course and counts as a 'Bridge Course'. Maximum number of participants is 15. If the course is not fully booked, non-GESS students from Business, Economics, or the Social Sciences or from other related disciplines can enroll. As a necessary requirement you need to make a working paper draft available to all of us that you present in our ‘Mini Research Day’.
Course Content
This course will introduce students to interdisciplinary research and aims at initiating projects of an interdisciplinary nature, thereby fostering the interdisciplinary spirit of the graduate students at the GESS. This year, the course will be given by one senior researchers from each center of the GESS, i.e., you will have the unique opportunity to receive truly interdisciplinary feedback on your work from three different angles.
The course consists of four core building blocks:
1. Kick-Off & Introductory Session: What is interdisciplinary research.
After a short introduction on the nature and success of interdisciplinary research as well as the structure of the course by the instructors, each participant will shortly (max 5 min, 2–3 slides per person) present the core idea of an interdisciplinary paper published in a top journal in her field. Please browse the recent issues of the most important journals in your field to find such a paper. Note that interdisciplinarity can have various aspects in this context (e.g., methods developed for a specific purpose in one field being used in another context, using a theoretical framework from one area to better understand a research question in another, using data generated in another context for a research project, ...). Your presentation should make clear, what the interdisciplinary innovation of the paper is. Alternatively, you can also present a dataset or a methodology and highlight how students from other GESS centers might take advantage of it.
2. Mini-Research-Day
The second component of the course is a ‘Mini-Research-Day’ which is intended to introduce the kind of topics you are working on to other course participants. You will give a presentation on a current working paper or research project of yours and you will discuss a paper/
presentation from one of your fellow students from another field (10 min presentation, 5 min discussion, 10 min Q&A). 3. Science Speed Dating
The science speed dating event – organized by your student representatives – involves short bilateral talks between participants with the later possibility to match research interests. All course participants will participate in the speed dating event and are asked to develop at least one collaborative research proposal with a student from another field (preferably from our course).
4. Project Presentations & Writeups
This proposal will be presented by groups of 2 (in exceptional cases 3) students in a final meeting about four weeks after the speed dating event. Each research team will also prepare a short write-up of their proposal (max. 5 pages, incl. references) explaining the intended contribution to the literature, the interdisciplinary aspects of the project and the proposed procedure how to implement the project to be handed in two weeks after the presentation. Moreover, you will also discuss another team project.
Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, students will
- have gotten in touch with a variety of disciplinary research methods and perspectives from different fields.
- critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these research methods.
- identify and develop an interdisciplinary research proposal and communicate their ideas clearly in both, a presentation and in writing.
- have received feedback from senior researchers from all three centers.
- have practiced to present their work to a critical, interdisciplinary audience and to discuss other students work in a format closely resembling that of most academic conferences.
Assessment
This is a pass/
fail course. To successfully pass the course, each student has to: - Give a short paper presentation in the introductory session.
- Present, discuss, and participate in the ‘Mini Research Day’. An extended abstract and the set of slides that will be used for the presentation or (preferably) a working paper draft needs to be provided by each presenting student to the assigned discussant a week before the research day.
- Participate at the science speed dating event.
- Present your interdisciplinary research proposal (group of two students) and subsequently hand in a write-up.
- Full and active participation in all four building blocks is necessary to pass the course.
- The best interdisciplinary proposal will win a prize.
Please register by the registration deadline given below, by sending a title and an abstract of the research project/
topic you would like to present during the ‘Mini Research Day’ to gess.registrationuni-mannheim.de. Please indicate in your e-mail your fields of interest and mention up to three broad other fields (e.g. Marketing, Macroeconomics, Social Psychology, Political Science) you would like to collaborate with. Please note that the course is limited to a maximum of 15 participants, and seats will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
Course dates
- January 31st, 2023 – Course Registration Deadline
- February 15th, 2023, 10:00 – 14:00 – Kick-Off Meeting, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- February 23th – Deadline to send paper to discussant (and in cc to: gess.office@uni-mannheim.de)
- March 2nd, 2023, 10:00 – 19:00 – Mini Research Day, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- March 30th, 2023, exact time TBA – Science Speed Dating event, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- May 25, 2023, 10:00 – 19:00 – Presentation of Research Proposal, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- June 8th, 2023 – Deadline to hand in interdisciplinary research proposal (to: gess.office@uni-mannheim.de)
Competences acquired
Upon successful completion of this course, students will
- have gotten in touch with a variety of disciplinary research methods and perspectives from different fields
- critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these research methods
- identify and develop an interdisciplinary research proposal and communicate their ideas clearly in both, a presentation and in writing.
- have received feedback from senior researchers from all three centers.
- have practiced to present their work to a critical, interdisciplinary audience and to discuss other students work in a format closely resembling that of most academic conferences.
Seminar Series: Open Science Office: Research Skills Seminar Series0 ECTSCourse Type: elective courseCourse Number: Seminar SeriesCourse Content
Interested in learning about Open Science, reproducibility, and transparency in research and all things related to research data management? Then don’t wait, join our Research Skills Seminar Series and learn the skills needed to create an optimised and transparent research workflow that is embedded in Open Science and facilitates research data management. From conceptual issues like the replication crisis, to learning skills like pre-registration and wrangling data in R, this seminar series has got you covered and is here to support you.
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Marketing
MKT 804: Theory Development and Model Building6 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: MKT 804Credits: 6Course Content
This course teaches students how to develop and test theories in an applied and concrete way. We discuss and study a range of research approaches and methods, including structural equation modeling. This course provides students with an opportunity to develop and fine-tune appropriate and specific theories for their own research.
Students come up and choose a specific topic of their interest at the beginning of the class and develop and present a theoretical framework suitable for their project. Another key learning outcome is to enhance students’ ability to conduct sound academic research and help them to derive hypotheses for their own research projects.Learning goals:
- Learn how to generate ideas, define concepts, and clarify relationships between concepts.
- Explore the process of theory construction and theory testing using the structural equation modeling (SEM) framework.
- Identify and explore substantive theoretical contributions to the marketing strategy literature.
- Exercise and extend analytical skills in order to conduct sound academic research
Form of assessment: Project (40%), presentation (60%)
Schedule
Lecture Kick-Off 22.03.23 Wednesday 13:45 – 15:15 Roche Forum, L 5, 1 Download 29.03.23 Wednesday 13:45 – 17:00 Roche Forum, L 5, 1 Download 19.04.23 Wednesday 13:45 – 15:15 Roche Forum, L 5, 1 Download 26.04.23 Wednesday 13:45 – 17:00 Roche Forum, L 5, 1 Download 03.05.23 Wednesday 13:45 – 15:15 Roche Forum, L 5, 1 Download 17.05.23 Wednesday 13:45 – 17:00 Roche Forum, L 5, 1 Download MKT 901: Designing Marketing Research Projects6 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: MKT 901Credits: 6Course Content
In this course, students will develop their own marketing research projects (e.g., as parts of their own dissertation projects). In presentation sessions, students will present their research project to all participants of the class and to the instructor. Discussions among participants as well as the instructor’s feedback aim at strengthening and refining the positioning and the contribution of the individual projects. Students in the first year of their Ph.D. studies can thus use this course to get important insights for the preparation and refinement of their dissertation proposal.
At the beginning of the course, objectives, general guidelines, and best practices for developing impactful research projects will be provided in a kick-off meeting. Furthermore, best practices how to get published in leading journals will be discussed. Then, students will start developing their projects. Students are not limited with respect to the choice of their individual research topic; however, it is made in accordance with the instructor.
Students will prepare the project by developing a presentation containing the positioning and research questions, a brief literature review, the theoretical foundations and research hypotheses, as well as an outlook on potential methodological approaches (such as obtaining and analyzing adequate data). Students will present their research projects. Based on the course participants’ and the instructor’s feedback, students can update and refine their research projects.
Learning outcomes:
- Development of own marketing research project
- presentation of own marketing research project
- providing feedback on marketing research projects
This course aims at preparing students to formulate their own marketing research problems (e.g., as parts of their dissertation projects), to shape their contribution with respect to the existing literature, and to identify the necessary data and methods to conduct their research projects. As benchmark for the students’ research projects, the actual standards with respect to innovativeness, relevance, and rigor of the leading international marketing journals will be applied. Furthermore, implications for practice have to be considered.
Form of assessment: Essay (60%), presentation (40%)
Schedule
Lecture Kick-off Session 14.03.23 – 14.03.23 Tuesday 09:00 – 12:00 009 Roche Forum, L5, 1 Download Lecture 16.05.23 – 16.05.23 Tuesday 09:00 – 13:00 009 Roche Forum, L5, 1 Download Lecture 17.05.23 – 17.05.23 Wednesday 09:00 – 13:00 009 Roche Forum, L5, 1 Download MKT 910: Area Seminar MarketingECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: MKT 910Course Content
The course focuses on current research topics in the field of marketing. Visiting researchers present their latest working papers and discuss their ideas with participating faculty and students. The course introduces students to the variety of research methods that are currently popular in empirical and theoretical research.
Learning outcomes: Students will learn to follow-up with and discuss about current research topics in marketing. The interaction with leading researchers will allow them to develop own research ideas and get insights into the design, execution and presentation of research projects.
Form of assessment: Oral Participation
Seminar Dates are announced here.
ACC 922: Decarbonization Seminar3 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: ACC 922Credits: 3Course Content
This course is aimed at doctoral students at GESS. The seminar hosts speakers from academia and industry to discuss latest advances and challenges associated with the transition towards a decarbonized energy economy. Topics covered include the economics and management of sustainability activities and clean energy technologies across all sectors of the economy with a particular focus on the energy sector, transportation services, and carbon-free manufacturing processes.
Course participants need to attend the seminar talks and the corresponding preparation sessions. In the preparation sessions, students are asked to present a paper and take the role of a discussant. Readings may additionally include recent theory or empirical papers.
Learning outcomes: The primary objective of the course is to introduce students to current research paradigms on the covered topics and to identify promising avenues for future research. Moreover, students receive a training on how to present and evaluate papers in seminars and conferences.
Form of assessment: Participation (20%), Paper presentations and discussions (80%)
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 13.02.23 – 22.05.23 Monday 17:15 – 18:45 O 129 Download IS 809: Advanced Data Science Lab II (Text Mining)6 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: IS 809Credits: 6Course Content
The goal of this lab exercises is to guide students through the typical steps of a scientific data-science project from problem formulation to data acquisition, selection of methods, analysis and presentation / documentation. The focus of this lab will be on analyzing textual data, for example large scale news or social media datasets, using techniques and methods from the domain of natural language processing. The students will present their results and write a paper about their research.
Learning Goals: Students will be equipped with practical experience with conducting scientific data-science projects. They will train their presentation skills, learn to communicate in research projects and receive feedback.
Examination: Written elaboration (90%) and presentation (10%)
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 15:30 – 17:00 L 15, 1–6, 314–315 Download Tutorial Exercise 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 17:15 – 18:45 L 15, 1–6, 314–315 Download MET 931: Topics in Advanced Sampling Methods: Design and Causal Inference5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: MET 931Credits: 5Prerequisites
The reading course is aimed at Ph.D. students in or beyond their second year to support them during their research phase. 1st year PhD students are welcomed to attend the class as well.
Recommended: Knowledge of basic statistics and prior experience with R or Stata is helpful, but not necessary.
Course Content
This reading course provides a hands-on and paper-based approach to understanding and analyzing data. For many projects, collection of new data or experimental designs are the only way to answer a research question or to provide the decisive complementary evidence. Different ways to collect data can have important implications for model estimation and evaluation, parameter inference, and policy conclusions. Standard econometric methods start from assumptions about the sampling procedure and try to cope with the limitations of a given dataset. Instead, we start at the design stage and examine the interplay between sampling and experimental methods, statistical inference and estimation of causal effects. We will use the German Business Panel as point in case and implement cutting-edge methods to gain insights into the causal mechanisms behind reported outcomes. In each session, one of the participants will present a research paper, which we will discuss in light of concrete implementation at trial scale. Participants are encouraged to present research that is valuable for their own thesis or may be assigned to present a topic.
In addition to presenting a paper and participating in the discussion, students are expected to write a short technical report that summarizes the methods and implications in a way useful for peers who want to use the newly collected data or learn about experimental results.
Learning outcomes:
The specific applications cover a broad set of skills with a focus on design of questionnaires and survey experiments, data analysis and quantitative methods, classification, inference, writing of own reports, and opportunities for own research.
- Analytical Skills/
Problem-Solving: Students will effectively visualize, conceptualize, articulate, and solve or address problems, with available or newly generated information, through experimentation and observation, mainly using statistical and programming tools. - Critical Thinking: Students will apply empirical analysis to everyday problems in data collection and analysis helping them to understand events, evaluate specific methods, compare arguments with different conclusions to a specific issue, and assess the role played by assumptions.
- Quantitative Reasoning: Students will understand how to design collection and analysis of empirical evidence. Specifically, they may obtain and/
or collect relevant data, develop empirical evidence using appropriate statistical techniques, and interpret the results of such analyses. - Specialized Knowledge and Practical Application: Students will develop deeper analytical, critical, and quantitative skills in specialized areas by applying programming skills and statistical concepts to real world situations.
- Interdisciplinary Knowledge: Participants will broaden their knowledge by studying methods used in economics, sociology, political science, and other fields.
- Communication and Leadership: Participants will build presentation and discussion skills, ensuring they are prepared to navigate diverse audiences and situations. Collaborations of participants prepares joint projects.
- Preparation of Own Research: Projects will be valuable for own research projects; applications provide best practice examples.
Form of assessment: Paper (technical report) (optional), Presentation (50 %), Class Participation (50 %)
The course is also part of the TRR 266 Accounting for Transparency
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 10:15 – 11:45 B 144, A5, 6 – B Download MKT 902: Advances in Marketing Research6 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: MKT 902Credits: 6Prerequisites
Formal: MKT 801 Fundamentals of Marketing Research
Course Content
The primary goal of Advances in Marketing Research is to help students prepare to conduct research which is publishable in the leading research journals in their respective disciplines. Hence, the feedback students receive will be consistent with that dispensed by the reviewers and editors of the most prestigious research journals in business (i.e., highly critical). Even when a manuscript is accepted for publication at a leading journal, the authors typically receive mostly negative comments on their work. It is important that students not take criticism of their research personally. To do so would be extremely ego deflating and would interfere with their subsequent performance on other assignments. Moreover, students need to develop the ability to accept and use criticism to be able to survive in the academic publishing world.
Learning outcomes: Advances in Marketing Research is designed to assist doctoral candidates in acquiring a deeper understanding of the research process and a knowledge of the research tools which they will need to design and execute scientific research on behavioral and organizational issues in marketing. An effort is made to help the students develop research judgment as well as research skills so that they will be better able to assess when a proposed piece of research is likely to be fruitful and when it is not.
Form of assessment: Essay: 50%, presentation: 30%, discussion and simulation/
statistical analysis: 20% Schedule
Lecture Lecture 17.02.23 – 02.06.23 Friday 15:30 – 17:00 L5, 2, room 107 Download RES: Financial Economics of Climate and Sustainability (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RESCredits: 5Prerequisites
The course will assume that participants have a background in core graduate‐level finance. The course will cover topics from a variety of subfields in finance (asset pricing, financial intermediation, household finance, corporate finance). The introductory block of three classes is intended to orient students to the science of climate change as well as to refresh key concepts from economics and finance; the remaining classes will dive into detail on current research in different subfield. We will conclude with a discussion of open topics in this field. We expect that the course will be useful to doctoral students in finance, economics, and accounting. As a global class, we will largely be on Zoom. Beyond weekly preparation and participation, students will be expected to write a paper either laying out a potential research topic or synthesizing a set of related papers that were not discussed in class.
Course Content
The purpose of the course is to (a) introduce graduate students to questions and methods in the rapidly evolving fields of climate/
sustainable finance; (b) connect researchers from across the globe interested in this topic to stimulate more rigorous, relevant, and collaborative work. Addressing climate change demands changes in natural, social, and economic systems and will require greater collaboration. In that spirit, this course is being offered by a team of professors from different schools and universities across the globe. Each instructor will deliver one or more lectures and there will be students from a number of different schools. Our teaching group consists of current and former AFA and EFA presidents and some of the leading climate finance scholars, including Laura Starks (current AFA President), Patrick Bolton (former AFA President), Stefano Giglio, Marcin Kacperczyk (former EFA President), Caroline Flammer, Geoff Heal, Stefan Reichelstein, Ben Caldecott and Peter Tufano.
Assessment
Beyond weekly preparation and participation, students will be expected to write a paper either laying out a potential research topic or synthesizing a set of papers related to Climate Change and Sustainability that were not discussed in class.
This course starts early (January 24), please make sure to register until December 20, 2022!
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 24.01.23 – 11.04.23 Tuesday 17:00 – 19:00 online (Zoom) Download RES: New Perspectives on Economics and Politics (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RESCredits: 5Course Content
We live in interesting times both, economically and politically. Many observers point to crises and uncertain developments in the economic and political world. Making sense of the nature of these challenges and pointing toward economic and political solutions for the future requires new perspectives. This is a course about the big and bold questions in economics and politics. How can or should economics and politics be organized to best serve society? What does it mean to put humans as they really are at the center of economic and political thinking? What role do morals and values, or dignity and respect, play for the way economics and politics work? What are the implications of digitalization for capitalism and freedom?
We will try to come to grips with these questions by reading and discussing four key books on various new perspectives at the intersection between economics and politics. The aim of this course is to go as deep as we can and to get as much out of an in-class discussion of the material as possible. Willingness to acquire and read the books is a must. If you are unsure about whether or not you would want to take on the commitment of reading four books in one semester then this course is probably not the right one for you.
Students need to be willing to read books, form their own opinions on them, and elaborate on and defend their own views in group discussions and a final essay.Required Readings
Friedman, M. (1963). Capitalism and Freedom. University of Chicago Press.
Greene, J. (2015). Moral Tribes. Atlantic Books.
Sandel, M. J. (2020). The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?. Penguin UK.
Zuboff, S. (2016). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. PublicAffairs.
Schedule
Seminar 24.02.23 – 24.02.23 Friday 13:45 – 15:15 D002 in B6, 27–29 Download 21.04.23 – 02.06.23 Friday 10:15 – 13:30 D002 in B6, 27–29 Download RES / IntRes: Interdisciplinary Research in the Economic and Social Sciences (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RES / IntResCredits: 5Prerequisites
This course is exclusively geared towards students who are currently doctoral students at the GESS of the University of Mannheim. It is intended for beginning as well as advanced doctoral students. This course is an elective course and counts as a 'Bridge Course'. Maximum number of participants is 15. If the course is not fully booked, non-GESS students from Business, Economics, or the Social Sciences or from other related disciplines can enroll. As a necessary requirement you need to make a working paper draft available to all of us that you present in our ‘Mini Research Day’.
Course Content
This course will introduce students to interdisciplinary research and aims at initiating projects of an interdisciplinary nature, thereby fostering the interdisciplinary spirit of the graduate students at the GESS. This year, the course will be given by one senior researchers from each center of the GESS, i.e., you will have the unique opportunity to receive truly interdisciplinary feedback on your work from three different angles.
The course consists of four core building blocks:
1. Kick-Off & Introductory Session: What is interdisciplinary research.
After a short introduction on the nature and success of interdisciplinary research as well as the structure of the course by the instructors, each participant will shortly (max 5 min, 2–3 slides per person) present the core idea of an interdisciplinary paper published in a top journal in her field. Please browse the recent issues of the most important journals in your field to find such a paper. Note that interdisciplinarity can have various aspects in this context (e.g., methods developed for a specific purpose in one field being used in another context, using a theoretical framework from one area to better understand a research question in another, using data generated in another context for a research project, ...). Your presentation should make clear, what the interdisciplinary innovation of the paper is. Alternatively, you can also present a dataset or a methodology and highlight how students from other GESS centers might take advantage of it.
2. Mini-Research-Day
The second component of the course is a ‘Mini-Research-Day’ which is intended to introduce the kind of topics you are working on to other course participants. You will give a presentation on a current working paper or research project of yours and you will discuss a paper/
presentation from one of your fellow students from another field (10 min presentation, 5 min discussion, 10 min Q&A). 3. Science Speed Dating
The science speed dating event – organized by your student representatives – involves short bilateral talks between participants with the later possibility to match research interests. All course participants will participate in the speed dating event and are asked to develop at least one collaborative research proposal with a student from another field (preferably from our course).
4. Project Presentations & Writeups
This proposal will be presented by groups of 2 (in exceptional cases 3) students in a final meeting about four weeks after the speed dating event. Each research team will also prepare a short write-up of their proposal (max. 5 pages, incl. references) explaining the intended contribution to the literature, the interdisciplinary aspects of the project and the proposed procedure how to implement the project to be handed in two weeks after the presentation. Moreover, you will also discuss another team project.
Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, students will
- have gotten in touch with a variety of disciplinary research methods and perspectives from different fields.
- critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these research methods.
- identify and develop an interdisciplinary research proposal and communicate their ideas clearly in both, a presentation and in writing.
- have received feedback from senior researchers from all three centers.
- have practiced to present their work to a critical, interdisciplinary audience and to discuss other students work in a format closely resembling that of most academic conferences.
Assessment
This is a pass/
fail course. To successfully pass the course, each student has to: - Give a short paper presentation in the introductory session.
- Present, discuss, and participate in the ‘Mini Research Day’. An extended abstract and the set of slides that will be used for the presentation or (preferably) a working paper draft needs to be provided by each presenting student to the assigned discussant a week before the research day.
- Participate at the science speed dating event.
- Present your interdisciplinary research proposal (group of two students) and subsequently hand in a write-up.
- Full and active participation in all four building blocks is necessary to pass the course.
- The best interdisciplinary proposal will win a prize.
Please register by the registration deadline given below, by sending a title and an abstract of the research project/
topic you would like to present during the ‘Mini Research Day’ to gess.registrationuni-mannheim.de. Please indicate in your e-mail your fields of interest and mention up to three broad other fields (e.g. Marketing, Macroeconomics, Social Psychology, Political Science) you would like to collaborate with. Please note that the course is limited to a maximum of 15 participants, and seats will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
Course dates
- January 31st, 2023 – Course Registration Deadline
- February 15th, 2023, 10:00 – 14:00 – Kick-Off Meeting, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- February 23th – Deadline to send paper to discussant (and in cc to: gess.office@uni-mannheim.de)
- March 2nd, 2023, 10:00 – 19:00 – Mini Research Day, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- March 30th, 2023, exact time TBA – Science Speed Dating event, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- May 25, 2023, 10:00 – 19:00 – Presentation of Research Proposal, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- June 8th, 2023 – Deadline to hand in interdisciplinary research proposal (to: gess.office@uni-mannheim.de)
Competences acquired
Upon successful completion of this course, students will
- have gotten in touch with a variety of disciplinary research methods and perspectives from different fields
- critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these research methods
- identify and develop an interdisciplinary research proposal and communicate their ideas clearly in both, a presentation and in writing.
- have received feedback from senior researchers from all three centers.
- have practiced to present their work to a critical, interdisciplinary audience and to discuss other students work in a format closely resembling that of most academic conferences.
Seminar Series: Open Science Office: Research Skills Seminar Series0 ECTSCourse Type: elective courseCourse Number: Seminar SeriesCourse Content
Interested in learning about Open Science, reproducibility, and transparency in research and all things related to research data management? Then don’t wait, join our Research Skills Seminar Series and learn the skills needed to create an optimised and transparent research workflow that is embedded in Open Science and facilitates research data management. From conceptual issues like the replication crisis, to learning skills like pre-registration and wrangling data in R, this seminar series has got you covered and is here to support you.
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Operations Management
IS / OPM 910: Area Seminar Information Systems and Operations ManagementECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: IS / OPM 910Course Content
The course focuses on current research topics in the field of information systems and operations management. Visiting researchers present their latest working papers and discuss their ideas with participating faculty and students. The course introduces students to the variety of research methods that are currently popular in empirical and theoretical research.
Learning outcomes: Students will learn to follow-up with and discuss about current research topics in information systems and operations management. The interaction with leading researchers will allow them to develop own research ideas and get insights into the design, execution and presentation of research projects.
Examination: Oral Participation
Seminar Dates will be announced via email to registered participants
OPM 806: Empirical Research in Operations Management8 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: OPM 806Credits: 8Prerequisites
Recommended: Fundamentals of statistics
Course Content
A large part of research in operations management focusses on modeling and solving practical problems. In contrast to this “OR approach”, the objective of empirical research is to collect data about practical phenomena in order to describe, explain, or predict how those phenomena work. This module provides an overview of (mainly quantitative) empirical research approaches to investigate research questions in operations management and related fields. The focus in not on the comprehensive treatment of empirical research methods, but on how to proceed from having a basic research question to an appropriate research design and methodology. Hence, special emphasis will be placed on the importance of understanding the contingent relationship between the nature of the research question and the research design used to answer it. Topics covered include quantitative vs. qualitative empirical research, framing of research questions, engaging theory and grounding of hypotheses, measurement and operationalization, sampling, model specification, and mainstream research designs and methodologies. This will enable students to critically evaluate the quality of the majority of empirical research in operations management and to design convincing research of their own.
The course will be taught using an interactive seminar style and is based on the discussion of a selection of papers.
Learning outcomes: At the end of this course, students have gained the competence to initiate, design, implement, and evaluate empirical research in the social sciences as applied to operations management.
Form of assessment: Oral exam (30 minutes) 60%, presentation 40%
Schedule
Lecture 21.04.23 Friday 08:30 – 13:30 SO 318 Download 28.04.23 Friday 08:30 – 13:30 SO 318 Download 05.05.23 Friday 08:30 – 13:30 SO 318 Download 19.05.23 Friday 08:30 – 13:30 SO 318 Download ACC 922: Decarbonization Seminar3 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: ACC 922Credits: 3Course Content
This course is aimed at doctoral students at GESS. The seminar hosts speakers from academia and industry to discuss latest advances and challenges associated with the transition towards a decarbonized energy economy. Topics covered include the economics and management of sustainability activities and clean energy technologies across all sectors of the economy with a particular focus on the energy sector, transportation services, and carbon-free manufacturing processes.
Course participants need to attend the seminar talks and the corresponding preparation sessions. In the preparation sessions, students are asked to present a paper and take the role of a discussant. Readings may additionally include recent theory or empirical papers.
Learning outcomes: The primary objective of the course is to introduce students to current research paradigms on the covered topics and to identify promising avenues for future research. Moreover, students receive a training on how to present and evaluate papers in seminars and conferences.
Form of assessment: Participation (20%), Paper presentations and discussions (80%)
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 13.02.23 – 22.05.23 Monday 17:15 – 18:45 O 129 Download IS 809: Advanced Data Science Lab II (Text Mining)6 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: IS 809Credits: 6Course Content
The goal of this lab exercises is to guide students through the typical steps of a scientific data-science project from problem formulation to data acquisition, selection of methods, analysis and presentation / documentation. The focus of this lab will be on analyzing textual data, for example large scale news or social media datasets, using techniques and methods from the domain of natural language processing. The students will present their results and write a paper about their research.
Learning Goals: Students will be equipped with practical experience with conducting scientific data-science projects. They will train their presentation skills, learn to communicate in research projects and receive feedback.
Examination: Written elaboration (90%) and presentation (10%)
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 15:30 – 17:00 L 15, 1–6, 314–315 Download Tutorial Exercise 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 17:15 – 18:45 L 15, 1–6, 314–315 Download MET 931: Topics in Advanced Sampling Methods: Design and Causal Inference5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: MET 931Credits: 5Prerequisites
The reading course is aimed at Ph.D. students in or beyond their second year to support them during their research phase. 1st year PhD students are welcomed to attend the class as well.
Recommended: Knowledge of basic statistics and prior experience with R or Stata is helpful, but not necessary.
Course Content
This reading course provides a hands-on and paper-based approach to understanding and analyzing data. For many projects, collection of new data or experimental designs are the only way to answer a research question or to provide the decisive complementary evidence. Different ways to collect data can have important implications for model estimation and evaluation, parameter inference, and policy conclusions. Standard econometric methods start from assumptions about the sampling procedure and try to cope with the limitations of a given dataset. Instead, we start at the design stage and examine the interplay between sampling and experimental methods, statistical inference and estimation of causal effects. We will use the German Business Panel as point in case and implement cutting-edge methods to gain insights into the causal mechanisms behind reported outcomes. In each session, one of the participants will present a research paper, which we will discuss in light of concrete implementation at trial scale. Participants are encouraged to present research that is valuable for their own thesis or may be assigned to present a topic.
In addition to presenting a paper and participating in the discussion, students are expected to write a short technical report that summarizes the methods and implications in a way useful for peers who want to use the newly collected data or learn about experimental results.
Learning outcomes:
The specific applications cover a broad set of skills with a focus on design of questionnaires and survey experiments, data analysis and quantitative methods, classification, inference, writing of own reports, and opportunities for own research.
- Analytical Skills/
Problem-Solving: Students will effectively visualize, conceptualize, articulate, and solve or address problems, with available or newly generated information, through experimentation and observation, mainly using statistical and programming tools. - Critical Thinking: Students will apply empirical analysis to everyday problems in data collection and analysis helping them to understand events, evaluate specific methods, compare arguments with different conclusions to a specific issue, and assess the role played by assumptions.
- Quantitative Reasoning: Students will understand how to design collection and analysis of empirical evidence. Specifically, they may obtain and/
or collect relevant data, develop empirical evidence using appropriate statistical techniques, and interpret the results of such analyses. - Specialized Knowledge and Practical Application: Students will develop deeper analytical, critical, and quantitative skills in specialized areas by applying programming skills and statistical concepts to real world situations.
- Interdisciplinary Knowledge: Participants will broaden their knowledge by studying methods used in economics, sociology, political science, and other fields.
- Communication and Leadership: Participants will build presentation and discussion skills, ensuring they are prepared to navigate diverse audiences and situations. Collaborations of participants prepares joint projects.
- Preparation of Own Research: Projects will be valuable for own research projects; applications provide best practice examples.
Form of assessment: Paper (technical report) (optional), Presentation (50 %), Class Participation (50 %)
The course is also part of the TRR 266 Accounting for Transparency
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 10:15 – 11:45 B 144, A5, 6 – B Download RES: Financial Economics of Climate and Sustainability (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RESCredits: 5Prerequisites
The course will assume that participants have a background in core graduate‐level finance. The course will cover topics from a variety of subfields in finance (asset pricing, financial intermediation, household finance, corporate finance). The introductory block of three classes is intended to orient students to the science of climate change as well as to refresh key concepts from economics and finance; the remaining classes will dive into detail on current research in different subfield. We will conclude with a discussion of open topics in this field. We expect that the course will be useful to doctoral students in finance, economics, and accounting. As a global class, we will largely be on Zoom. Beyond weekly preparation and participation, students will be expected to write a paper either laying out a potential research topic or synthesizing a set of related papers that were not discussed in class.
Course Content
The purpose of the course is to (a) introduce graduate students to questions and methods in the rapidly evolving fields of climate/
sustainable finance; (b) connect researchers from across the globe interested in this topic to stimulate more rigorous, relevant, and collaborative work. Addressing climate change demands changes in natural, social, and economic systems and will require greater collaboration. In that spirit, this course is being offered by a team of professors from different schools and universities across the globe. Each instructor will deliver one or more lectures and there will be students from a number of different schools. Our teaching group consists of current and former AFA and EFA presidents and some of the leading climate finance scholars, including Laura Starks (current AFA President), Patrick Bolton (former AFA President), Stefano Giglio, Marcin Kacperczyk (former EFA President), Caroline Flammer, Geoff Heal, Stefan Reichelstein, Ben Caldecott and Peter Tufano.
Assessment
Beyond weekly preparation and participation, students will be expected to write a paper either laying out a potential research topic or synthesizing a set of papers related to Climate Change and Sustainability that were not discussed in class.
This course starts early (January 24), please make sure to register until December 20, 2022!
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 24.01.23 – 11.04.23 Tuesday 17:00 – 19:00 online (Zoom) Download RES: New Perspectives on Economics and Politics (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RESCredits: 5Course Content
We live in interesting times both, economically and politically. Many observers point to crises and uncertain developments in the economic and political world. Making sense of the nature of these challenges and pointing toward economic and political solutions for the future requires new perspectives. This is a course about the big and bold questions in economics and politics. How can or should economics and politics be organized to best serve society? What does it mean to put humans as they really are at the center of economic and political thinking? What role do morals and values, or dignity and respect, play for the way economics and politics work? What are the implications of digitalization for capitalism and freedom?
We will try to come to grips with these questions by reading and discussing four key books on various new perspectives at the intersection between economics and politics. The aim of this course is to go as deep as we can and to get as much out of an in-class discussion of the material as possible. Willingness to acquire and read the books is a must. If you are unsure about whether or not you would want to take on the commitment of reading four books in one semester then this course is probably not the right one for you.
Students need to be willing to read books, form their own opinions on them, and elaborate on and defend their own views in group discussions and a final essay.Required Readings
Friedman, M. (1963). Capitalism and Freedom. University of Chicago Press.
Greene, J. (2015). Moral Tribes. Atlantic Books.
Sandel, M. J. (2020). The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?. Penguin UK.
Zuboff, S. (2016). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. PublicAffairs.
Schedule
Seminar 24.02.23 – 24.02.23 Friday 13:45 – 15:15 D002 in B6, 27–29 Download 21.04.23 – 02.06.23 Friday 10:15 – 13:30 D002 in B6, 27–29 Download RES / IntRes: Interdisciplinary Research in the Economic and Social Sciences (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RES / IntResCredits: 5Prerequisites
This course is exclusively geared towards students who are currently doctoral students at the GESS of the University of Mannheim. It is intended for beginning as well as advanced doctoral students. This course is an elective course and counts as a 'Bridge Course'. Maximum number of participants is 15. If the course is not fully booked, non-GESS students from Business, Economics, or the Social Sciences or from other related disciplines can enroll. As a necessary requirement you need to make a working paper draft available to all of us that you present in our ‘Mini Research Day’.
Course Content
This course will introduce students to interdisciplinary research and aims at initiating projects of an interdisciplinary nature, thereby fostering the interdisciplinary spirit of the graduate students at the GESS. This year, the course will be given by one senior researchers from each center of the GESS, i.e., you will have the unique opportunity to receive truly interdisciplinary feedback on your work from three different angles.
The course consists of four core building blocks:
1. Kick-Off & Introductory Session: What is interdisciplinary research.
After a short introduction on the nature and success of interdisciplinary research as well as the structure of the course by the instructors, each participant will shortly (max 5 min, 2–3 slides per person) present the core idea of an interdisciplinary paper published in a top journal in her field. Please browse the recent issues of the most important journals in your field to find such a paper. Note that interdisciplinarity can have various aspects in this context (e.g., methods developed for a specific purpose in one field being used in another context, using a theoretical framework from one area to better understand a research question in another, using data generated in another context for a research project, ...). Your presentation should make clear, what the interdisciplinary innovation of the paper is. Alternatively, you can also present a dataset or a methodology and highlight how students from other GESS centers might take advantage of it.
2. Mini-Research-Day
The second component of the course is a ‘Mini-Research-Day’ which is intended to introduce the kind of topics you are working on to other course participants. You will give a presentation on a current working paper or research project of yours and you will discuss a paper/
presentation from one of your fellow students from another field (10 min presentation, 5 min discussion, 10 min Q&A). 3. Science Speed Dating
The science speed dating event – organized by your student representatives – involves short bilateral talks between participants with the later possibility to match research interests. All course participants will participate in the speed dating event and are asked to develop at least one collaborative research proposal with a student from another field (preferably from our course).
4. Project Presentations & Writeups
This proposal will be presented by groups of 2 (in exceptional cases 3) students in a final meeting about four weeks after the speed dating event. Each research team will also prepare a short write-up of their proposal (max. 5 pages, incl. references) explaining the intended contribution to the literature, the interdisciplinary aspects of the project and the proposed procedure how to implement the project to be handed in two weeks after the presentation. Moreover, you will also discuss another team project.
Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, students will
- have gotten in touch with a variety of disciplinary research methods and perspectives from different fields.
- critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these research methods.
- identify and develop an interdisciplinary research proposal and communicate their ideas clearly in both, a presentation and in writing.
- have received feedback from senior researchers from all three centers.
- have practiced to present their work to a critical, interdisciplinary audience and to discuss other students work in a format closely resembling that of most academic conferences.
Assessment
This is a pass/
fail course. To successfully pass the course, each student has to: - Give a short paper presentation in the introductory session.
- Present, discuss, and participate in the ‘Mini Research Day’. An extended abstract and the set of slides that will be used for the presentation or (preferably) a working paper draft needs to be provided by each presenting student to the assigned discussant a week before the research day.
- Participate at the science speed dating event.
- Present your interdisciplinary research proposal (group of two students) and subsequently hand in a write-up.
- Full and active participation in all four building blocks is necessary to pass the course.
- The best interdisciplinary proposal will win a prize.
Please register by the registration deadline given below, by sending a title and an abstract of the research project/
topic you would like to present during the ‘Mini Research Day’ to gess.registrationuni-mannheim.de. Please indicate in your e-mail your fields of interest and mention up to three broad other fields (e.g. Marketing, Macroeconomics, Social Psychology, Political Science) you would like to collaborate with. Please note that the course is limited to a maximum of 15 participants, and seats will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
Course dates
- January 31st, 2023 – Course Registration Deadline
- February 15th, 2023, 10:00 – 14:00 – Kick-Off Meeting, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- February 23th – Deadline to send paper to discussant (and in cc to: gess.office@uni-mannheim.de)
- March 2nd, 2023, 10:00 – 19:00 – Mini Research Day, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- March 30th, 2023, exact time TBA – Science Speed Dating event, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- May 25, 2023, 10:00 – 19:00 – Presentation of Research Proposal, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- June 8th, 2023 – Deadline to hand in interdisciplinary research proposal (to: gess.office@uni-mannheim.de)
Competences acquired
Upon successful completion of this course, students will
- have gotten in touch with a variety of disciplinary research methods and perspectives from different fields
- critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these research methods
- identify and develop an interdisciplinary research proposal and communicate their ideas clearly in both, a presentation and in writing.
- have received feedback from senior researchers from all three centers.
- have practiced to present their work to a critical, interdisciplinary audience and to discuss other students work in a format closely resembling that of most academic conferences.
Seminar Series: Open Science Office: Research Skills Seminar Series0 ECTSCourse Type: elective courseCourse Number: Seminar SeriesCourse Content
Interested in learning about Open Science, reproducibility, and transparency in research and all things related to research data management? Then don’t wait, join our Research Skills Seminar Series and learn the skills needed to create an optimised and transparent research workflow that is embedded in Open Science and facilitates research data management. From conceptual issues like the replication crisis, to learning skills like pre-registration and wrangling data in R, this seminar series has got you covered and is here to support you.
- Analytical Skills/
-
Taxation
ACC / TAX 910: Area Seminar Accounting and TaxationECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: ACC / TAX 910Course Content
The course focuses on current research topics in the field of accounting and taxation. Visiting researchers present their latest working papers and discuss their ideas with participating faculty and students. The presentations have workshop format and are similar in style to leading scientific conferences. For each presentation, a separate preparation session for the Ph.D. students is offered in advance by rotating faculty. Overall, the course deepens the students’ insights into a variety of research methods that are currently popular in empirical and theoretical research.
Learning outcomes: Students will learn to follow-up with and discuss about current research topics in accounting and taxation. The interaction with leading researchers will allow them to develop own research ideas and get insights into the design, execution and presentation of research projects.
Seminar Dates are announced here.
ACC / TAX 920: Brown Bag Seminar Empirical Accounting & TaxationECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: ACC / TAX 920Course Content
The course is taught in a seminar-style format. Students present their own research ideas at different stages of the project (early ideas, preliminary results, and complete working papers). The presentations involve an interactive discussion between faculty and students about the project’s potential contribution, related literature, research design and interpretation of results.
Learning outcomes: Students will learn how to present and discuss their own research results in a scientific format. They will become acquainted with acting as a discussant for other topics. Students will gain insights into the assessment of contribution, research design, and interpretation of research papers. The development of these skills is also helpful for writing scientific referee reports.
Form of assessment: Oral Participation
Coursedates will be announced via email to registered participants.
TAX 802: Applied Taxation Research I: Foundations and Core Methods6 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: TAX 802Credits: 6Prerequisites
Formal: Advanced Econometrics I or Applied Econometrics I
Course Content
- Conceptual foundations of business taxation: optimal capital/
investment choice of firms in the presence of taxes and the role of equity and debt financing in a world with tax differentials. - Core empirical methods that are used in applied empirical business taxation research: potential outcome framework, surveys, difference-in-difference estimation. Class sessions are mostly organized along the methods in the standard tool kit of empirical research. We start off each topic with a brief and easy overview of the method. Afterwards, a student will summarize a paper using the respective method and we will discuss in class. For each method, we identify a set of core papers which use the respective method, present examples of a state-of-the art application and are relevant topic wise. These core papers are summarized and discussed in class. We expect all students to read the core papers that we cover in class.
Learning Outcomes:
- Students become acquainted with important topics and methods for causal identification in empirical tax research.
- Students can identify the most appropriate empirical methods for their own research projects.
- Students can comprehend state-of-the-art literature and they can critically discuss strengths and weaknesses of recent research papers.
Form of assessment: Presentation (40%), Essay (40%), Participation in class (20%)
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 15.02.23 – 29.03.23 Wednesday 08:30 – 11:45 SO 133 Download Lecture 16.02.23 – 30.03.23 Thursday 08:30 – 11:45 SO 133 Download TAX 803: Applied Taxation Research II: Advanced Methods and Own Research Topics8 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: core courseCourse Number: TAX 803Credits: 8Prerequisites
Formal: Advanced Econometrics I or Applied Econometrics I
Course Content
Core empirical methods that are used in applied empirical business taxation research: Regression Discontinuity (RDD), Instrumental Variables (IV), Discrete Choice Models and the Bunching estimator (following up on the methods covered in TAX 802: experiments, surveys, difference-in-difference).
Class sessions are mostly organized along the methods in the standard tool kit of empirical research. We start off each topic with a brief and easy overview of the method. Afterwards, a student will summarize a paper using the respective method and we will discuss in class. For each method, we identify a set of core papers which use the respective method, present examples of a state-of-the art application and are relevant topic wise. These core papers are summarized and discussed in class. We expect all students to read the core papers that we cover in class.
Students develop their own research project and carry out all phases of the project, except the actual data work. To this end, students first identify a research question and idea, and pitch their idea in class. Subsequently, students start writing up a paper for their research project, which includes all parts of the paper except the data work.
Learning outcomes:
- Students become acquainted with important topics and methods for causal identification in empirical tax research.
- Students can comprehend state-of-the-art literature and to critically discuss strengths and weaknesses of the recent research on taxation.
- Students are able to develop their own research ideas and execute all stages of a research project.
Form of assessment: Two Presentations (40%), Research Paper (40%), Participation in class (20%)
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 19.04.23 – 31.05.23 Wednesday 08:30 – 11:45 SO 133 Download Lecture 20.04.23 – 01.06.23 Thursday 08:30 – 11:45 SO 133 Download Lecture 21.04.23 – 02.06.23 Friday 08:30 – 11:45 SO 133 Download ACC 922: Decarbonization Seminar3 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: ACC 922Credits: 3Course Content
This course is aimed at doctoral students at GESS. The seminar hosts speakers from academia and industry to discuss latest advances and challenges associated with the transition towards a decarbonized energy economy. Topics covered include the economics and management of sustainability activities and clean energy technologies across all sectors of the economy with a particular focus on the energy sector, transportation services, and carbon-free manufacturing processes.
Course participants need to attend the seminar talks and the corresponding preparation sessions. In the preparation sessions, students are asked to present a paper and take the role of a discussant. Readings may additionally include recent theory or empirical papers.
Learning outcomes: The primary objective of the course is to introduce students to current research paradigms on the covered topics and to identify promising avenues for future research. Moreover, students receive a training on how to present and evaluate papers in seminars and conferences.
Form of assessment: Participation (20%), Paper presentations and discussions (80%)
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 13.02.23 – 22.05.23 Monday 17:15 – 18:45 O 129 Download IS 809: Advanced Data Science Lab II (Text Mining)6 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: IS 809Credits: 6Course Content
The goal of this lab exercises is to guide students through the typical steps of a scientific data-science project from problem formulation to data acquisition, selection of methods, analysis and presentation / documentation. The focus of this lab will be on analyzing textual data, for example large scale news or social media datasets, using techniques and methods from the domain of natural language processing. The students will present their results and write a paper about their research.
Learning Goals: Students will be equipped with practical experience with conducting scientific data-science projects. They will train their presentation skills, learn to communicate in research projects and receive feedback.
Examination: Written elaboration (90%) and presentation (10%)
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 15:30 – 17:00 L 15, 1–6, 314–315 Download Tutorial Exercise 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 17:15 – 18:45 L 15, 1–6, 314–315 Download MET 931: Topics in Advanced Sampling Methods: Design and Causal Inference5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: MET 931Credits: 5Prerequisites
The reading course is aimed at Ph.D. students in or beyond their second year to support them during their research phase. 1st year PhD students are welcomed to attend the class as well.
Recommended: Knowledge of basic statistics and prior experience with R or Stata is helpful, but not necessary.
Course Content
This reading course provides a hands-on and paper-based approach to understanding and analyzing data. For many projects, collection of new data or experimental designs are the only way to answer a research question or to provide the decisive complementary evidence. Different ways to collect data can have important implications for model estimation and evaluation, parameter inference, and policy conclusions. Standard econometric methods start from assumptions about the sampling procedure and try to cope with the limitations of a given dataset. Instead, we start at the design stage and examine the interplay between sampling and experimental methods, statistical inference and estimation of causal effects. We will use the German Business Panel as point in case and implement cutting-edge methods to gain insights into the causal mechanisms behind reported outcomes. In each session, one of the participants will present a research paper, which we will discuss in light of concrete implementation at trial scale. Participants are encouraged to present research that is valuable for their own thesis or may be assigned to present a topic.
In addition to presenting a paper and participating in the discussion, students are expected to write a short technical report that summarizes the methods and implications in a way useful for peers who want to use the newly collected data or learn about experimental results.
Learning outcomes:
The specific applications cover a broad set of skills with a focus on design of questionnaires and survey experiments, data analysis and quantitative methods, classification, inference, writing of own reports, and opportunities for own research.
- Analytical Skills/
Problem-Solving: Students will effectively visualize, conceptualize, articulate, and solve or address problems, with available or newly generated information, through experimentation and observation, mainly using statistical and programming tools. - Critical Thinking: Students will apply empirical analysis to everyday problems in data collection and analysis helping them to understand events, evaluate specific methods, compare arguments with different conclusions to a specific issue, and assess the role played by assumptions.
- Quantitative Reasoning: Students will understand how to design collection and analysis of empirical evidence. Specifically, they may obtain and/
or collect relevant data, develop empirical evidence using appropriate statistical techniques, and interpret the results of such analyses. - Specialized Knowledge and Practical Application: Students will develop deeper analytical, critical, and quantitative skills in specialized areas by applying programming skills and statistical concepts to real world situations.
- Interdisciplinary Knowledge: Participants will broaden their knowledge by studying methods used in economics, sociology, political science, and other fields.
- Communication and Leadership: Participants will build presentation and discussion skills, ensuring they are prepared to navigate diverse audiences and situations. Collaborations of participants prepares joint projects.
- Preparation of Own Research: Projects will be valuable for own research projects; applications provide best practice examples.
Form of assessment: Paper (technical report) (optional), Presentation (50 %), Class Participation (50 %)
The course is also part of the TRR 266 Accounting for Transparency
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 14.02.23 – 30.05.23 Tuesday 10:15 – 11:45 B 144, A5, 6 – B Download RES: Financial Economics of Climate and Sustainability (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RESCredits: 5Prerequisites
The course will assume that participants have a background in core graduate‐level finance. The course will cover topics from a variety of subfields in finance (asset pricing, financial intermediation, household finance, corporate finance). The introductory block of three classes is intended to orient students to the science of climate change as well as to refresh key concepts from economics and finance; the remaining classes will dive into detail on current research in different subfield. We will conclude with a discussion of open topics in this field. We expect that the course will be useful to doctoral students in finance, economics, and accounting. As a global class, we will largely be on Zoom. Beyond weekly preparation and participation, students will be expected to write a paper either laying out a potential research topic or synthesizing a set of related papers that were not discussed in class.
Course Content
The purpose of the course is to (a) introduce graduate students to questions and methods in the rapidly evolving fields of climate/
sustainable finance; (b) connect researchers from across the globe interested in this topic to stimulate more rigorous, relevant, and collaborative work. Addressing climate change demands changes in natural, social, and economic systems and will require greater collaboration. In that spirit, this course is being offered by a team of professors from different schools and universities across the globe. Each instructor will deliver one or more lectures and there will be students from a number of different schools. Our teaching group consists of current and former AFA and EFA presidents and some of the leading climate finance scholars, including Laura Starks (current AFA President), Patrick Bolton (former AFA President), Stefano Giglio, Marcin Kacperczyk (former EFA President), Caroline Flammer, Geoff Heal, Stefan Reichelstein, Ben Caldecott and Peter Tufano.
Assessment
Beyond weekly preparation and participation, students will be expected to write a paper either laying out a potential research topic or synthesizing a set of papers related to Climate Change and Sustainability that were not discussed in class.
This course starts early (January 24), please make sure to register until December 20, 2022!
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 24.01.23 – 11.04.23 Tuesday 17:00 – 19:00 online (Zoom) Download RES: New Perspectives on Economics and Politics (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RESCredits: 5Course Content
We live in interesting times both, economically and politically. Many observers point to crises and uncertain developments in the economic and political world. Making sense of the nature of these challenges and pointing toward economic and political solutions for the future requires new perspectives. This is a course about the big and bold questions in economics and politics. How can or should economics and politics be organized to best serve society? What does it mean to put humans as they really are at the center of economic and political thinking? What role do morals and values, or dignity and respect, play for the way economics and politics work? What are the implications of digitalization for capitalism and freedom?
We will try to come to grips with these questions by reading and discussing four key books on various new perspectives at the intersection between economics and politics. The aim of this course is to go as deep as we can and to get as much out of an in-class discussion of the material as possible. Willingness to acquire and read the books is a must. If you are unsure about whether or not you would want to take on the commitment of reading four books in one semester then this course is probably not the right one for you.
Students need to be willing to read books, form their own opinions on them, and elaborate on and defend their own views in group discussions and a final essay.Required Readings
Friedman, M. (1963). Capitalism and Freedom. University of Chicago Press.
Greene, J. (2015). Moral Tribes. Atlantic Books.
Sandel, M. J. (2020). The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?. Penguin UK.
Zuboff, S. (2016). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. PublicAffairs.
Schedule
Seminar 24.02.23 – 24.02.23 Friday 13:45 – 15:15 D002 in B6, 27–29 Download 21.04.23 – 02.06.23 Friday 10:15 – 13:30 D002 in B6, 27–29 Download RES / IntRes: Interdisciplinary Research in the Economic and Social Sciences (Bridge Course)5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: RES / IntResCredits: 5Prerequisites
This course is exclusively geared towards students who are currently doctoral students at the GESS of the University of Mannheim. It is intended for beginning as well as advanced doctoral students. This course is an elective course and counts as a 'Bridge Course'. Maximum number of participants is 15. If the course is not fully booked, non-GESS students from Business, Economics, or the Social Sciences or from other related disciplines can enroll. As a necessary requirement you need to make a working paper draft available to all of us that you present in our ‘Mini Research Day’.
Course Content
This course will introduce students to interdisciplinary research and aims at initiating projects of an interdisciplinary nature, thereby fostering the interdisciplinary spirit of the graduate students at the GESS. This year, the course will be given by one senior researchers from each center of the GESS, i.e., you will have the unique opportunity to receive truly interdisciplinary feedback on your work from three different angles.
The course consists of four core building blocks:
1. Kick-Off & Introductory Session: What is interdisciplinary research.
After a short introduction on the nature and success of interdisciplinary research as well as the structure of the course by the instructors, each participant will shortly (max 5 min, 2–3 slides per person) present the core idea of an interdisciplinary paper published in a top journal in her field. Please browse the recent issues of the most important journals in your field to find such a paper. Note that interdisciplinarity can have various aspects in this context (e.g., methods developed for a specific purpose in one field being used in another context, using a theoretical framework from one area to better understand a research question in another, using data generated in another context for a research project, ...). Your presentation should make clear, what the interdisciplinary innovation of the paper is. Alternatively, you can also present a dataset or a methodology and highlight how students from other GESS centers might take advantage of it.
2. Mini-Research-Day
The second component of the course is a ‘Mini-Research-Day’ which is intended to introduce the kind of topics you are working on to other course participants. You will give a presentation on a current working paper or research project of yours and you will discuss a paper/
presentation from one of your fellow students from another field (10 min presentation, 5 min discussion, 10 min Q&A). 3. Science Speed Dating
The science speed dating event – organized by your student representatives – involves short bilateral talks between participants with the later possibility to match research interests. All course participants will participate in the speed dating event and are asked to develop at least one collaborative research proposal with a student from another field (preferably from our course).
4. Project Presentations & Writeups
This proposal will be presented by groups of 2 (in exceptional cases 3) students in a final meeting about four weeks after the speed dating event. Each research team will also prepare a short write-up of their proposal (max. 5 pages, incl. references) explaining the intended contribution to the literature, the interdisciplinary aspects of the project and the proposed procedure how to implement the project to be handed in two weeks after the presentation. Moreover, you will also discuss another team project.
Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, students will
- have gotten in touch with a variety of disciplinary research methods and perspectives from different fields.
- critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these research methods.
- identify and develop an interdisciplinary research proposal and communicate their ideas clearly in both, a presentation and in writing.
- have received feedback from senior researchers from all three centers.
- have practiced to present their work to a critical, interdisciplinary audience and to discuss other students work in a format closely resembling that of most academic conferences.
Assessment
This is a pass/
fail course. To successfully pass the course, each student has to: - Give a short paper presentation in the introductory session.
- Present, discuss, and participate in the ‘Mini Research Day’. An extended abstract and the set of slides that will be used for the presentation or (preferably) a working paper draft needs to be provided by each presenting student to the assigned discussant a week before the research day.
- Participate at the science speed dating event.
- Present your interdisciplinary research proposal (group of two students) and subsequently hand in a write-up.
- Full and active participation in all four building blocks is necessary to pass the course.
- The best interdisciplinary proposal will win a prize.
Please register by the registration deadline given below, by sending a title and an abstract of the research project/
topic you would like to present during the ‘Mini Research Day’ to gess.registrationuni-mannheim.de. Please indicate in your e-mail your fields of interest and mention up to three broad other fields (e.g. Marketing, Macroeconomics, Social Psychology, Political Science) you would like to collaborate with. Please note that the course is limited to a maximum of 15 participants, and seats will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
Course dates
- January 31st, 2023 – Course Registration Deadline
- February 15th, 2023, 10:00 – 14:00 – Kick-Off Meeting, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- February 23th – Deadline to send paper to discussant (and in cc to: gess.office@uni-mannheim.de)
- March 2nd, 2023, 10:00 – 19:00 – Mini Research Day, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- March 30th, 2023, exact time TBA – Science Speed Dating event, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- May 25, 2023, 10:00 – 19:00 – Presentation of Research Proposal, Room 212 (building B6, 30–32)
- June 8th, 2023 – Deadline to hand in interdisciplinary research proposal (to: gess.office@uni-mannheim.de)
Competences acquired
Upon successful completion of this course, students will
- have gotten in touch with a variety of disciplinary research methods and perspectives from different fields
- critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these research methods
- identify and develop an interdisciplinary research proposal and communicate their ideas clearly in both, a presentation and in writing.
- have received feedback from senior researchers from all three centers.
- have practiced to present their work to a critical, interdisciplinary audience and to discuss other students work in a format closely resembling that of most academic conferences.
Seminar Series: Open Science Office: Research Skills Seminar Series0 ECTSCourse Type: elective courseCourse Number: Seminar SeriesCourse Content
Interested in learning about Open Science, reproducibility, and transparency in research and all things related to research data management? Then don’t wait, join our Research Skills Seminar Series and learn the skills needed to create an optimised and transparent research workflow that is embedded in Open Science and facilitates research data management. From conceptual issues like the replication crisis, to learning skills like pre-registration and wrangling data in R, this seminar series has got you covered and is here to support you.
TAX 922: Reading Course Taxation Research5 ECTSLecturer(s)
Course Type: elective courseCourse Number: TAX 922Credits: 5Course Content
The course provides a forum to discuss recent state-of-the art papers in taxation research (mostly applied empirical). All covered papers are recently published or in the working paper stage. In each class session, one student briefly presents a research paper before the paper is discussed in class. All students are expected to read the research paper to be discussed in preparation for the class and it is one main objectives of the course that papers are lively discussed among all class participants.
Students can choose papers which they wish to present or the responsible instructors provide a selection from which to pick. Students are encouraged to choose papers which are on the reading list for their thesis. The course could also serve as a forum for discussing paper drafts of peers or researchers within the network.
In addition to presenting a paper in class, students are expected to write a referee report for a research paper. This will teach how to evaluate a paper critically and how to write a referee report.
The reading course is particularly aimed at 2nd and higher year Ph.D. students to support them during their research phase. 1st year PhD students are welcomed to attend the class as well. Students can attend and earn credits for both this class as well as the related class TAX 923 (which is taught in the fall semester).
Learning outcomes:
- Know your field and related fields: Learn about the literature, both in your own (sub-field) of interest and other fields.
- Commit to a reading routine for your thesis
- Community building: The reading group will spawn discussion and encourage community building
- Ability to present and confidence building: Learn how to present well. (This is often easier with a paper that somebody else wrote – one is not as emotionally involved in the question/
approach/ results as with one’s own paper.) - Discussion competence: Learn how to be a good seminar participant: Behave well, ask clear questions, discuss in an appropriate manner etc.
- Ability to understand: Learn how to read and approach research papers and learn to summarize the main message/
points of the paper - Participation in scientific discourse
- Learn how to evaluate a paper critically
- Writing a referee report
Form of assessment: Paper (referee report) 40 %, Presentation 30 %, Class Participation 30 %
Schedule
Lecture Lecture 13.02.23 – 22.05.23 Monday 10:15 – 11:45 SO 133 Download - Conceptual foundations of business taxation: optimal capital/