Explain the role of media in the stock market
Part 1: Formulate the main research question.
– What is the main question you want to answer in your thesis?
– Why is this question economically important?
-Is there any new idea or data you plan to bring to the table? If so, please explain. Note that a very good thesis will have some element that goes beyond pure replication of existing work.
Part 2: Current state of literature (maximum length 1 page!).
– What do we already know from the academic literature about that topic?
Note: there is a hierarchy of academic journals. The highest quality Finance journals include: Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Review of Finance, and Management Science. Previous related work on your topic in these journals should be mentioned.
The goal is not to cite 100 papers here. It is much better – and perfectly acceptable – to cite only 5, if you are sure those 5 are really relevant. The goal is not to show that you can read a lot of papers, but to make sure you know what the state-of-the art thinking on your topic is.
Part 3: Research Plan.
– How are you going to answer the questions in your thesis?
– What data are you going to use?
– What kind of empirical techniques are you going to use? Please be specific.
For example, do not write: “I plan to check if mergers pay off.” Rather, write: “I want to investigate if mergers create value for the shareholders of bidding firms by running short-term event studies around merger announcement dates.”
– If you intend to run a regression analysis, write down clearly the regression model (i.e., the equation).
Part 4: Data resources.
– Where are you going to find the data that you need in Part 3?
– Have you checked that you have access to those data? (The answer to this question needs to be: “yes” for any acceptable proposal!)
