Summer School on Structural Estimation in Corporate Finance

June 13 – 16, 2023

The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA

Organized by Luke Taylor, University of Pennsylvania// Toni Whited, University of Michigan

The goal of this four-day program is to teach young scholars the tools they need to understand and conduct corporate finance research using structural estimation. The target audience is advanced Ph.D. students and professors in finance and related fields. We will take a practical, hands-on approach that focuses on tools. Topics will include numerical methods for solving models, simulation estimators, identification challenges, and a review of the literature. Participants will attend lectures for the first half of each day, then spend the second half applying the material to a mini-research project. The project involves solving and estimating a simple dynamic model. By the end of the week, participants will have done structural estimation, and they will leave with computer code they can use in their future research.