Research Project Topic:
Illegal Insider Trading
Question: Are there any potential benefits allowing insider trading?
Requirments:
Research Paper Structure
- Introduction to the topic you chose, definitions, and why the topic is important in corporate finance.
- A review of some of the literature related to your topic. This should include a review of both theories and empirical studies.
- For example, let’s say you choose to write about dividends. There is the agency theory, signaling theory, and others.You should discuss these theories, and then also discuss some papers that attempted to “test” if the data supports these theories.
- Your assessment of the literature, including your opinions after reading the existing arguments.
- For example, do you feel the literature is missing something? Which theories do you tend to agree with the most? Have you had any firsthand experiences or personal opinions on the topic?
- Some areas or questions that you think need to be addressed or some hypotheses that you may have.
- Do you have any predictions that were not covered in the literature you read? For example, under what type of circumstances might investors prefer dividend-paying stocks?
- Brief concluding remarks.
- References
The content of the report matters much more than the length.As a very general guideline, the paper should be around 12 pages including references.
You can use any reputable sources. Some useful resources and publications are:
Rubric
5 points: On time submission of the outline and the final project.
10 points: Exposition: including the structure of the paper, grammar, punctuation, clarity, references, etc.
60 points: Literature Review: your writing on the existing theories and empirical papers related to your topic.
25 points: Original thought: your interpretation of the existing literature, your ideas and opinions and the reasoning behind them, your hypotheses, etc.