Quantitative Methods

Aims

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the most important statistical tools used in quantitative accounting analysis.  The focus is on application and interpretation of the tools and results.  The intention is not only to equip students with the practical skills to implement the necessary techniques, but to acquire the skills of discretion in choice of appropriate method and clarity in the interpretation of the output from such methods, together with extraction of the information of most importance to the business-decision maker.

Learning Outcomes

During this course, students will:

• Develop analytical skills in structuring and analysing business-decision problems
• Be familiar with the most important statistical methods used in quantitative business analysis
• Build analytical models for a variety of problems in a number of functional areas
• Understand the usefulness and limitation of selected techniques
• Use software to generate computer solutions of the models
• Produce short-term forecasts using standard statistical methods and computer software
• Demonstrate skills in communicating the analysis and results of business-decision problems.

Content

• Presentation of statistical data and descriptive statistics
• Probability, random variables, expectation, and probability distributions
• Sampling and sampling distributions
• Estimation: point and interval
• Hypothesis testing
• Regression and correlation analysis
• Panel data analysis and endogeneity techniques
• Time series analysis and short-term forecasting
• Use of industry-standard databases and software