Economics Thesis Ideas

Good Day,

I am entering my 4th year at St. Francis Xavier University looking for some ideas for my honours thesis. The thesis must be in economics but I would like to relate it to Investment Banking or Financial Markets somehow (I'm actually a joint honors student majoring in both economics and business- specifically finance).

Anyone have any interesting ideas?
I was thinking something to do with the future of financial regulations or how exchange rate relationships are changing with the introduction new products such as BitCoin and growing foreign economies. I'd like for it to be more on the Macro side and not based on building a large complex model.
Any ideas on connecting what I've learned in economics and finance? All ideas welcome and I'll be sure to post my finding next april when I'm finished my paper. :)

Regards

 

I'd be surprised if there are enough data out there on non-sovereign currencies to make it thesis-worthy, but that's an intriguing topic. staying with the currency theme, I think it'd be interesting to do a study on the Euro. essentially you have a monetary union without a fiscal union (as you know, duh), and while I'm not sure what the thesis would be, it's an interesting topic and I'm sure you could find something, perhaps linking economic variables of constituents to currency fluctuations.

 
Animal Spirits:

. There is some interesting research out there regarding the tradeoff between capital controls and economic development.

Funny you should mention this idea. The one that I'm working on has something to do with this. The paper I originally wrote got selected for a national conference earlier this year. Now I'm just working on ways to expand it so I can use it as my senior honors project.
 

As someone who completed two of these (and who was in your exact position in terms of finding a topic), I went around to other schools' websites and looked into what their students were doing. In many cases, the text of their work was available and I was able to get motivation into some of what was going on at the cutting edge. There are plenty of students who are doing work in the areas that you're looking at. Good luck!

 
Best Response

You've already had shit thrown at you twice, but I'd like to add something constructive to that comment...

Being genuinely interested in something isn't always an instantaneous realization; more often than not, it's a process. You might find one of your passions in some very narrow, obscure area of the world/a subject matter -- something that could take a while.

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Thanks for all your imputs guys! I've decided to do my thesis on financial regulation, specifically whether or not Canada would benefit from a federal financial regulatory body (as Canada is currently the only developed country to not have a regulatory body at the federal level).

-Matt
 

Been there, done that. Ended up getting a solid A-. Econ majors FTW!

Your topic is fine. Just make sure whatever topic you choose, there is plenty of available data. At the end of it all, you need to show a relation between the independent variable and the dependent variable, and also how strong that relation is.

As an added method of analysis, you can compare another situation, which in your case would the US/SEC.

 

What's expected from your thesis in terms of pages and estimated time? And what areas of econ? Do you already have a professor you'd like to do the thesis with?

I don't know about the US, but in Germany it's quite popular to write your bachelor's or master's thesis under the supervision of or specifically in/for a certain company you ideally already interned with.

 

It will take me to complete the masters around 2 years. I can pick the area that I want so I want to do something that is related to finance. I can find a supervisor at the university so thats not an issue. The important thing is to find a suitable topic for my thesis that will allow me to signal to employers both my skills and interest. However, i dont know how i should go about finding an appropriate thesis subject.

 
AustrianFA:
Hey there,

I'm looking for ideas for my undergraduate thesis for my economics degree and was wondering if anyone had any interesting suggestions. I'm looking for something related to both finance and economics, and bonus if it is quantitative based. Something beneficial to my professional career would also be a plus.

My interests are: Anything related to finance Austrian Economics The Fed Milton Friedman

Something that ties in any from the above would be great.

Thanks for the help.

The history of the Fed as it should be told. This is good if you want to be an economist.

If you want something more closely relating to finance try writing about investment strategies based on monetary policy.

 

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