Research Assignment

During this course, you will focus on designing and executing your own research paper. This is an individual paper with three deliverables, with the final goal of publishing the research paper in a peer-reviewed journal. You will have opportunities to iterate and revise your work based on peer and instructor feedback.

This is a semester-long project and weighs a significant portion of your total grade (40%). Therefore, I expect you to take the project seriously and work toward it throughout the semester. In this project, you will use the knowledge and insights learned from scholarly papers discussed in the class to write a scholarly paper for yourself. You are free to work on any topic related to FinTech that interests you. At the end of this document, I provide some ideas and suggestions. You are welcome to work on those ideas if they interest you. I encourage you to try developing your own algorithms/methodology/technique, but you are also free to use existing methodology/algorithms/techniques. While deciding on the research project, please consider the availability of the data.

A number of good FinTech-related data are publicly available. You can also use or to access stock market data. Bloomberg provides a large assortment of proprietary financial data, including the stock market, bond market, forex, ETF, financial news, and many more. If you are interested in any other proprietary data, e.g., WRDS, CRSP, or COMPUSTATE, you can consult me, and we can try to find a solution for that too.

I strongly encourage you to use Python for curating and analyzing your research data. You are required to submit your Python codes [.py or .ipynb] file along with your final report. If you are using Google Colab or GitHub, you can submit the link and make sure to give me access to the code. This code may include your data, model/algorithm if you are using any, and data analysis part.

Please make sure that your code compiles. Submitting code for your proposal and milestone report is optional. You will not be graded for your code on these two submissions. However, if you are struggling with any specific aspect of the code, or wondering whether your code works, you are encouraged to submit your code. I will review it and provide feedback. This code may include your data, model/algorithm if you are using any, and data analysis part.

There are a total of four deliverables during the semester:

1. Project Deliverable 1: Research Proposal (Week 6).
2. Project Deliverable 2: Progress Report (Week 10). You will submit a draft report including your progress on the project.
3. Project Deliverable 3: Presentation (Week 14). You will create a 10-minute presentation of your project.
4. Project Deliverable 4: Final Paper (Week 15). You will complete the research paper and associated codes.

Writing Instructions

All of the writing you submit (i.e., proposal, progress report, and final paper) should follow style and grammar guidelines. You can reference the APAs to get detailed instructions on APA style. You can also refer to a

on the APA website. All resources should be properly cited both in-text and in the reference list. Please follow APA referencing guidelines

Research Ideas

Below are several potential project ideas for your consideration (you are free to work on your own projects not contained on this list as well).

1. Analyze the network structure of financial assets.
2. Exchange-traded Funds (ETFs, their performance, and network effect).
3. Classifying Financial Time Series: What features of financial return time series can be used to classify them into their correct asset class?
4. FINTECH and their consumer complaints: Are FinTech companies better equipped to deal with consumer complaints?

You can get data consumer complaint data from here:

• (CFPB)
• (CFPB)

Learning Outcomes:

In this activity, you will be assessed on your ability to:

• Synthesize algorithms and data from different sources to produce business results and knowledge.
• Write a research paper that has the potential to publish in a peer-reviewed journal.