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Big Data Asset Pricing - 5 ECTS (partially hybrid)

Date and time

Thursday 9 January 2025 at 09:00 to Thursday 27 February 2025 at 10:00

Registration Deadline

Friday 6 December 2024 at 23:55

Location

Solbjerg Plads - room SP D4 Augustinus Fonden (fourth floor - above canteen), Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg Solbjerg Plads - room SP D4 Augustinus Fonden (fourth floor - above canteen)
Solbjerg Plads 3
2000 Frederiksberg

Big Data Asset Pricing - 5 ECTS (partially hybrid)

Course coordinator: Professor Lasse Heje Pedersen, Department of Finance

Faculty
 
Lasse Heje Pedersen (LHP) and Christian Stolborg (CST), videos made by Theis Ingerslev Jensen
 
Prerequisites
 
The course is designed as a first-year Ph.D. course. The prerequisites are knowledge of asset pricing theory and econometrics at a M.Sc. level and an ability to work independently with data using a programmatic computer language such as Matlab, R, or Python. Students must participate in the whole course and do all problem sets. 
 
 
Aim
 
The aim of the class is to introduce PhD students in finance and related fields to empirical asset pricing research methods using big data. 
 
 
Content
 
The course provides students with empirical asset pricing tools to use big data to analyze modern topics in financial economics. The course starts with a quick overview of asset pricing, empirical asset pricing, and how to work with big financial data. The course then covers the factor zoo, multiple testing adjustments, replication, machine learning in asset pricing, and asset pricing with frictions. In addition to the theoretical discussion, the students will gain access to a large data set of global equity returns and use this data to solve several mandatory exercises, which constitute an essential part of the course. Each student must make their own solution to each exercise and be able to explain this solution and present it.  Students are allowed to discuss the exercises and solution methods, but students are not allowed to copy each other. Students must disclose in their solutions if code has been copied from public sources (using public code is perfectly fine, but should be disclosed), and should disclose any other material used.
 
Slides, exercises, and other material: Available on Canvas. Preliminary slides and exercises available here
 
 
Lecture plan 
 
(Preliminary, 1h means 1 hour consisting of 45 minutes lecture and 15 minutes break)
 
Lecture 1 - 9 January, 9-12: A primer on asset pricing (hybrid, 3h) LHP 
Stochastic discount factors, tradable and non-tradeable factors, factor models
 
Lecture 2 - 16 January, 9-12: A primer on empirical asset pricing (hybrid, 3h) LHP 
How to make and use factors, time series and cross-sectional regressions, predictability in the time series and the cross section, further methods
Discussion of Exercise 1 (Beta-dollar neutral portfolios)
 
Lecture 3 - 23 January (video): Working with big asset pricing data (video, 3h) 
WRDS, CRSP, Compustat, JKPfactors, global data 
 
Lecture 4 - 30 January, 9-12: The factor zoo and replication (hybrid,3h) LHP and CST 
Replication crisis, frequentist and Bayesian multiple testing adjustments
Discussion of Exercise 2: Construct Value Factors
 
Lecture 5 - 6 February, 9-16: Machine learning in asset pricing (on campus, 6h) LHP and CST
Validation, hyper-parameters, penalized regressions, trees, neural networks, feature importance, asset pricing applications 
Discussion of Exercise 3: Factor replication analysis
Work on Exercise 4 
 
Lecture 6 - 7 February, 9-13: Asset pricing with frictions (on campus, 4h) LHP
Transaction costs, market liquidity risk, funding liquidity risk, frictions meet machine learning
 
Lecture 7 - 27 February, 9-10: Discussion of Exercise 4: High-dimensional return prediction (hybrid, 1h) CST
 
Participation on campus in lectures 5 and 6 (6-7 February) is mandatory.
 
Learning objectives 
 
The course objectives are to:
• Work with big financial data, including making factors
• Apply factor models to estimate risk and expected return
• Estimate stock return predictability via regressions and portfolio sorts 
• Evaluate potential replication crisis and the factor zoo
• Implement multiple testing adjustments using frequentist and Bayesian methods
• Apply machine learning to asset pricing data
• Analyze financial market frictions
 
 
Course Literature
 
Course participants are expected to have read the assigned reading before each class. The lecture plan lists the preliminary readings, but final readings will be listed on the “canvas” website. 
 
Lecture 1: The notes are self-contained, but familiarize yourself with
• Ch. 6 and 12 in Cochrane, J. H. (2009). Asset pricing. Princeton university press. 
• Kozak, Nagel, and Santosh (2018). Interpreting factor models. The Journal of Finance 73(3), 1183-1223.
 
Lecture 2: The notes are self-contained, but the notes contain a list of classic references that you should be aware of. See in particular:
• Cochrane (2011). Presidential address: Discount rates. The Journal of Finance 66(4), 1047-1108.
 
Lecture 3: Self-contained
 
Lecture 4: Please read
• Harvey, Liu, and Zhu (2016). . . . and the cross-section of expected returns. The Review of Financial Studies 29 (1), 5-68.
• Jensen, Kelly, and Pedersen (2021), “Is There a Replication Crisis in Finance?”
• See references in notes as background reading
 
Lecture 5: The notes are self-contained, but read the first paper here and familiarize yourself with the next two references:
• Gu, Kelly, Xiu (2020). Empirical asset pricing via machine learning, Review of Financial Studies.
• Kozak, S., S. Nagel, and S. Santosh (2020). Shrinking the cross-section. Journal of Financial Economics 135 (2), 271-292.
• Friedman, Hastie, Tibshirani. The elements of statistical learning. 
 
Lecture 6: Please read
• Ch. 12.2-3 in Campbell, J. Y. (2017). Financial decisions and markets: a course in asset pricing. Princeton University Press.
• Frazzini and Pedersen (2014), Betting Against Beta, Journal of Financial Economics 111 (1), 1-25.
• Also familiarize yourself with other references in notes.
 
Lecture 7: No reading
 
Books for background reading:
• Bali, T. G., Engle, R. F., & Murray, S. (2016). Empirical asset pricing: The cross section of stock returns. John Wiley & Sons.
• Campbell, J. Y. (2017). Financial decisions and markets: a course in asset pricing. Princeton University Press.
• Cochrane, J. H. (2009). Asset pricing. Princeton university press.
• Duffie, D. (2010). Dynamic asset pricing theory. Princeton University Press.
• Gelman, A., Carlin, J. B., Stern, H. S., Dunson, D. B., Vehtari, A., & Rubin, D. B. (2013). Bayesian data analysis. CRC press.
• Ferson, W. (2019). Empirical Asset Pricing: Models and Methods.
• Friedman, J., Hastie, T., & Tibshirani, R. (2001). The elements of statistical learning. New York: Springer series in statistics.
• Pedersen, L. H. (2015). Efficiently inefficient. Princeton University Press.
 
 
Language
 
English  
 
 
Contact information
 
For the content: Lasse Heje Pedersen (lhp.fi@cbs.dk) or Christian Stolborg (cst.fi@cbs.dk) 
For the administration of the course: Bente S. Ramovic (bsr.research@cbs.dk)  
 
 
Location and time
 
Copenhagen Business School
Solbjerg Plads 3 - Augustinusfonden's Meeting Room D4
2000 Frederiksberg
 
Lecture 1 - 9 January, 9-12
Lecture 2 - 16 January, 9-12
Lecture 3 - 23 January, (video)
Lecture 4 - 30 January, 9-12
Lecture 5 - 6 February, 9-16 on campus, mandatory 
Lecture 6 - 7 February, 9-12 on campus, mandatory
Lecture 7 - 27 February, 9-10
 
 
ECTS
 
5
 
 
Exam
 
There is no final exam, but students must satisfactory complete of all the mandatory exercises. The class is graded as pass/fail. 
 
 
Select payment methods:
 
CBS students: Choose CBS PhD students and the course fee will be deducted from your PhD budget.
 
Students from other Danish universities: Choose Danish Electronic Invoice (EAN). Fill in your EAN number, attention and possible purchase (project) order number. Do you not pay by EAN number please choose Invoice to pay via electronic bank payment (+71). 
 
Students from foreign universities: Choose Payment Card. Are you not able to pay by credit card please choose Invoice International to pay via bank transfer. 
 
Please note that your registration is binding after the registration deadline

Event Location

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Organizer Contact Information

CBS PhD School
Bente Ramovic
Phone: +45 3815 3138
bsr.research@cbs.dk

Organizer Contact Information

CBS PhD School
Bente Ramovic
Phone: +45 3815 3138
bsr.research@cbs.dk