- Email: [email protected]
Performing Financial Studies: a Methodological Cookbook
Book reviews / The British Accounting Review 36 (2004) 225–230
227
Is there anything that recommends this book for adoption by lectures above the numerous other volumes currently available? The answer is yes, quite a lot. The student friendly style hides what is really quite an intellectually demanding presentation of introductory material. The selection of illustrative examples has been done with considerable thought and imagination. It is obviously written by a practical teacher as well as a distinguished researcher. Just a word of criticism in terms of the balance of the book. This is substantially in favour of financial accounting. I am doubtful whether the management accounting section contains enough material to sustain a separate, semester long module. P. Gordon* Heriot-Watt University, EH14 4AS Edinburgh, UK * Tel.: þ44-131-449-5111; fax: þ44-131-449-5153. doi:10.1016/j.bar.2003.11.002
Performing Financial Studies: a Methodological Cookbook Michael J. Seiler, Pearson Prentice Hall, New Jersey, USA, 2003. 432 pages, ISBN 0-13047981-0, £34.99 In the preface, the author claims: My goal in this book is to breakdown some of the statistical procedures used in finance to a level truly accessible to the remaining 99.9 percent of students.ˇˇHNo detail is left out. I even include the raw datasets used in each example. This book is a valuable addition to the relatively sparse number of financial methodological texts which are accessible to students. Not only is it readable by a wide audience, it walks the reader through how to perform statistical tests using a dataset down loaded from the texts website (www.prenhall.com/seiler) and manipulated in Excel, EViews or SPSS. Each chapter focuses on a specific technique and is amply illustrated by screen views as the user will see them. From an educational perspective, the focus is on techniques, and there is rather less emphasis on the conceptual nature of the subject material. The chapters use practical examples as illustrations and identify some of the limitations of the techniques applied. Therefore, students would need to refer to a more traditional textbook to gain a deeper understanding of the theory of finance. The author has opted for breadth, rather than depth, of coverage. The book is very wellwritten, and despite its US-origins should prove equally appealing to an international audience. Although there are many worthy texts demonstrating how to use packages such as SPSS, invariably the context is from other social sciences such as psychology or marketing. The book is therefore part finance text, and part statistical package manual. In this sense, it has a clear niche. The textbook contains no fewer than 23 chapters, subdivided into four sections: getting started; basic financial statistics and methodologies; advanced financial techniques and
228
Book reviews / The British Accounting Review 36 (2004) 225–230
methodologies; and writing a financial study. The first section focuses on basics such as opening data in the chosen package and downloading financial data off the internet. Section two walks the user through a range of basic statistical techniques, including: correlation, regression, t-tests, calculating a share’s beta, and factor analysis. The third section considers such topics as: event studies, cointegration, ARCH and GARCH and Black-Scholes option pricing models. The final section briefly describes a typical structure of a finance study and also demonstrates how to cut and paste output from Excel, SPSS and EViews into MS Word. I think the text has three specific uses: 1. To accompany undergraduate classes in finance where the book is used in conjunction with laboratory sessions to support a lecture programme 2. To support a research methods class for postgraduate students in finance 3. For use with distance learning programmes in finance, where the student needs to perform financial modelling The textbook should prove popular with staff and students who see particular value in laboratory type finance exercises. Indeed, it is so user-friendly, the book could be usefully used by senior undergraduate and postgraduate students with little supervision. In summary, the author is to be commended for developing this resource which should prove useful for finance educators who seek statistical material which can be used without the need for significant additional explanation. Additionally, educators who are looking to develop students’ IT-literacy will benefit through the use of multiple packages and using the Internet for financial data. The book will serve both groups well. A. Duff Accounting Finance and Law Division Paisley Business School University of Paisley Paisley PA1 2BE, UK E-mail address: [email protected]
doi:10.1016/j.bar.2003.12.001
Performance Measurement and Management Control: A Compendium of Research 2002 Studies in Managerial and Financial Accounting, Vol. 12; M.J. Epstein, J.-F. Manzoni (Eds); JAI, Elsevier Sciences Ltd, Oxford, UK, 338 pages, ISBN 0-7623-0867-2 (86 e) The recent call for papers for the Sixth International Management Control Systems Research Conference in July 2004 (BAR, 2003, 35.2) reflects the dramatic shift that has taken place in both the practice and concepts of control in the last twenty years; in particular, the focus has
227
Is there anything that recommends this book for adoption by lectures above the numerous other volumes currently available? The answer is yes, quite a lot. The student friendly style hides what is really quite an intellectually demanding presentation of introductory material. The selection of illustrative examples has been done with considerable thought and imagination. It is obviously written by a practical teacher as well as a distinguished researcher. Just a word of criticism in terms of the balance of the book. This is substantially in favour of financial accounting. I am doubtful whether the management accounting section contains enough material to sustain a separate, semester long module. P. Gordon* Heriot-Watt University, EH14 4AS Edinburgh, UK * Tel.: þ44-131-449-5111; fax: þ44-131-449-5153. doi:10.1016/j.bar.2003.11.002
Performing Financial Studies: a Methodological Cookbook Michael J. Seiler, Pearson Prentice Hall, New Jersey, USA, 2003. 432 pages, ISBN 0-13047981-0, £34.99 In the preface, the author claims: My goal in this book is to breakdown some of the statistical procedures used in finance to a level truly accessible to the remaining 99.9 percent of students.ˇˇHNo detail is left out. I even include the raw datasets used in each example. This book is a valuable addition to the relatively sparse number of financial methodological texts which are accessible to students. Not only is it readable by a wide audience, it walks the reader through how to perform statistical tests using a dataset down loaded from the texts website (www.prenhall.com/seiler) and manipulated in Excel, EViews or SPSS. Each chapter focuses on a specific technique and is amply illustrated by screen views as the user will see them. From an educational perspective, the focus is on techniques, and there is rather less emphasis on the conceptual nature of the subject material. The chapters use practical examples as illustrations and identify some of the limitations of the techniques applied. Therefore, students would need to refer to a more traditional textbook to gain a deeper understanding of the theory of finance. The author has opted for breadth, rather than depth, of coverage. The book is very wellwritten, and despite its US-origins should prove equally appealing to an international audience. Although there are many worthy texts demonstrating how to use packages such as SPSS, invariably the context is from other social sciences such as psychology or marketing. The book is therefore part finance text, and part statistical package manual. In this sense, it has a clear niche. The textbook contains no fewer than 23 chapters, subdivided into four sections: getting started; basic financial statistics and methodologies; advanced financial techniques and
228
Book reviews / The British Accounting Review 36 (2004) 225–230
methodologies; and writing a financial study. The first section focuses on basics such as opening data in the chosen package and downloading financial data off the internet. Section two walks the user through a range of basic statistical techniques, including: correlation, regression, t-tests, calculating a share’s beta, and factor analysis. The third section considers such topics as: event studies, cointegration, ARCH and GARCH and Black-Scholes option pricing models. The final section briefly describes a typical structure of a finance study and also demonstrates how to cut and paste output from Excel, SPSS and EViews into MS Word. I think the text has three specific uses: 1. To accompany undergraduate classes in finance where the book is used in conjunction with laboratory sessions to support a lecture programme 2. To support a research methods class for postgraduate students in finance 3. For use with distance learning programmes in finance, where the student needs to perform financial modelling The textbook should prove popular with staff and students who see particular value in laboratory type finance exercises. Indeed, it is so user-friendly, the book could be usefully used by senior undergraduate and postgraduate students with little supervision. In summary, the author is to be commended for developing this resource which should prove useful for finance educators who seek statistical material which can be used without the need for significant additional explanation. Additionally, educators who are looking to develop students’ IT-literacy will benefit through the use of multiple packages and using the Internet for financial data. The book will serve both groups well. A. Duff Accounting Finance and Law Division Paisley Business School University of Paisley Paisley PA1 2BE, UK E-mail address: [email protected]
doi:10.1016/j.bar.2003.12.001
Performance Measurement and Management Control: A Compendium of Research 2002 Studies in Managerial and Financial Accounting, Vol. 12; M.J. Epstein, J.-F. Manzoni (Eds); JAI, Elsevier Sciences Ltd, Oxford, UK, 338 pages, ISBN 0-7623-0867-2 (86 e) The recent call for papers for the Sixth International Management Control Systems Research Conference in July 2004 (BAR, 2003, 35.2) reflects the dramatic shift that has taken place in both the practice and concepts of control in the last twenty years; in particular, the focus has