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Course: 2023/2024

Master Thesis

(17874)

Master in Economic Analysis (Plan: 405 - Estudio: 68)

EPC

Coordinating teacher: LOEPER , ANTOINE

Department assigned to the subject: Economics Department

Type: Master Final Project

ECTS Credits: 12.0 ECTS

Course: 2º

Semester: 2º

Requirements (Subjects that are assumed to be known)

Students must have passed all mandatory courses of the Master in Economic Analysis.

Objectives

The master thesis has the form of an academic paper. It should reflect the results of the student research of an original and relevant economic question. The Master thesis must be written in English and take the form of an academic paper. The Master Thesis should be supervised by a professor with a doctoral degree. Having an advisor who does not belong to the faculty of UC3M is possible, but in that case there should be a co-advisor from UC3M. Students who wish to take an outside advisor should ask for permission from the Director of the Master's program.

Skills and learning outcomes

Link to document

Learning activities and methodology

Students will participate in the reading groups in the fields of applied economics, econometrics, macroeconomics or microeconomics. In these meetings students are introduced to the methods to approach research in each field. Moreover, the topic courses of the second year, expose students to the frontier of research in each of the fields of specialization. During the month of April, students will present the master thesis project in front of the faculty of the field of their master thesis. In this presentation the student is expected to define a clear and relevant economic question, the seminal literature on the topic, and the methodology to be applied.

Assessment System

The master thesis is evaluated by an oral presentation and defense around mid-September in front of a committee proposed by the Director of the Master in Economic Analysis.

An electronic copy of the master thesis should be uploaded online following the instructions by the Centro de Postgrado of the Universidad Carlos III. This copy will be distributed among the members od the committee that will evaluate the thesis. There is a format for the front page of the paper determined by the Centro de Postgrado that must be followed. 

The evaluation committee of the master thesis will have three members chosen by the director of the MAE. The advisors of the master thesis cannot be members of the evaluation committee of the corresponding master thesis. A evaluation committee will evaluate one or more master thesis.
 
The evaluation committee will fill out a evaluation form for each of the master thesis evaluated (acta de calificación individual). The evaluation form will indicate the name of the student, the title of the master thesis, and the grade of the master thesis. This evaluation will follow the format provided by the director of the MAE and approved by the Centro de Postgrado (see appendix).

The master thesis should take the form of a standard paper as published in academic journals or high quality working papers series in Economics. The original contribution of the paper should be made very clear in the introduction by positioning the paper in the broader literature. The master thesis must be written in English and it should read well. The committee will also evaluate the presentation skills of the student. The oral presentation must be in English.

There is an official form to evaluate the master thesis. In this from the evaluators give a grade in the following questions about the master thesis: 

Q1. Does the master thesis clearly pose an original research question? 
Q2. Does the master thesis apply an adequate research methodology?
Q3. Evaluate the quality of the writing of the master thesis. 
Q4. Evaluate the presentation skills of the student. 
Q5. Could this master thesis develop into a paper to be submitted in an academic journal? 
 
The University uses the Turnitin Feedback Studio program within the Aula Global for the delivery of student work. This program compares the originality of the work delivered by each student with millions of electronic resources and detects those parts of the text that are copied and pasted. If the student has correctly made the appointment and the bibliographic reference of the documents he uses as a source, Turnitin will not mark it as plagiarism.

% end-of-term-examination 100
% of continuous assessment (assigments, laboratory, practicals...) 0

Basic Bibliography

Wayne C. Booth; , Gregory G. Colomb ;Joseph M. Williams . Craft of Research. University of Chicago. 2008
William Thomson. The Young Person¿s Guide to Writing Economic Theory. Journal of Economic Literature. Vol. XXXVII (March 1999), pp. 157¿183

Additional information

Useful information for the elaboration of the Work End of Master

The course syllabus may change due academic events or other reasons.

More information: http://economia.uc3m.es/wp-content/uploads/pdfs/Master_Thesis_Guide_2020-2021.pdf