HSE-NES BAE Methodological Recommendations, 2014/2015 Ksenia Panidi

Writing an Undergraduate Thesis

Methodological recommendations

  1. What is an undergraduate thesis?

An undergraduate thesis is an accomplished piece of research in the field of Economics that you submit and defend in the end of your 4th year. You cannot fulfil the HSE-NES program requirements without submitting a thesis. The thesis must be written by you under the supervision of one of the HSE or NES professors. Your thesis should demonstrate your ability to gather and analyse information and your deep familiarity with the existing literature on a particular issue that you are exploring. It also should show your ability to apply the research methods that you have acquired in the undergraduate program.

  1. Why writing a thesis is important?

Writing a thesis is a long-term endeavour thatwill require a largeamount of time and effort. However, it is an opportunity for you to:

(a)Become an independent researcher in a specific area of Economics, learn how to set up a hypothesis and empirically test it or provide a theoretical explanation for a specific economic phenomenon;

(b)Thoroughly explore existing knowledge on a specific economic question that interests you;

(c)Practically apply theoretical and/or empirical methods that you have learned during your studies;

(d)Learn to develop and present your arguments in a systematic way;

(e)Publicly present and defend the results of your analysis;

(f)Signal your knowledge and motivation to potential employersas well as to provide grounds for your academic advisor to write a good letter of recommendation.

  1. Choosing your topic

Choosing the right topic for your thesis could be difficult. The research question that you will work on should not be too broad or too specific. If the question you chose to work on is too broad, you will not be able to provide a definitive answer to it within the limit of 25-40 pages. On the other hand, if it is too specific it may not be interesting or important enough to be worth exploring. If in the process of working on a chosen topic you and your advisor decide that it is not good enough for your thesis, it can be changed up to one month prior to the date of your defence. However, to change your topic you should follow a formal procedure and notify the program co-directors accordingly. Also, keep in mind that it is not possible to write a good thesis in one month, so a radical change in your thesis topic in such a short time before your defence is not encouraged. The most likely scenario for a topic change is when you realize that the results you have obtained do not reflect the initially stated topic.

  1. Thesis content

Your thesis may be theoretical or empirical. Therefore, you may walk down one of the two roads:

(1)Theoretical work normally implies developing a theoretical model that explains the mechanism of a particular economic phenomenon. It may be completely original as well as based on an already existing model. By definition, all theoretical models contain some simplifying assumptions that are not realistic. Hence, any model may be developed further by relaxing one or more of its key assumptions or making them closer to reality. An important point is, however, to not write a model for the sake of mere curiosity regarding what will happen if a particular assumption is relaxed. The major driver of this process should be the desire to provide an answer to an important economic question. Another key point to keep in mind is to make sure that the mechanism that your model suggests cannot be entirely replicated by relabeling the variables in an already existing model.

(2)Empirical work normally implies data analysis that aims to answer a question on whether a particular economic phenomenon is observed in real life, or to test some hypothesis set up by previous research. Of course, formulating and testing your own original hypothesis is even better. Empirical work should not be limited to the analysis of correlations between variables or looking atvariable dynamics with the help of figures and tables. Although these methods are helpful, a sound empiricalanalysis should demonstrate the knowledge that you have obtained in your Econometrics classes (e.g. regression analysis).To perform it you will probably have to acquire some new technical skills such as working with empirical packages like STATA, Matlab, Eviews, etc.

Whichever path you choose, the methodology that you use should not be a mystery to the reader. Your conclusions should be based on a clear and understandable set of methods, be it econometrics or theoretical modelling. You can, of course, use both if needed.

  1. Research seminar

To guide you through the process of writing the thesis we organize a research seminar that is a part of your 4th year curriculum. Research seminar has two main purposes. First, it will guide you through the main stages of writing a research paper, including the major difficulties that you may face along the way and how to overcome them. Second, it will serve as anopportunity to present your work and receive valuable feedback from your classmates. Research seminar will consist of several lectures on how to write a research paper. Additionally, you will attend a series of meetings in groups of approximately 15-20 students where you will present your work. You should make at least two presentations during the academic year – one in each semester. Your first presentation should explain the main research question of your thesis, existing literature on the issue and the methods you plan to use to answer this question. Your second presentation should describe preliminary results of your thesis.

Attendance of the research seminar lectures and the meetings of your group throughout the year is obligatory.

  1. Timing issues

The final point of working on the thesis is its public defence that will take place in June.Your thesis should be fully prepared three weeks before the date of defence. Additionally there are several important (and mandatory) deadlines:

  • Before 10stDecemberyou should prepare and upload to MY.NES the research proposal (the next point of this text explains what is meant by the research proposal);
  • Before 1stMarch you should submit the first draft of your thesis to your advisor as well as upload it to the MY.NES system.

Meeting these two deadlines is essential for obtaining your grade on the research seminar.In addition to these deadlines, your advisor may set other intermediate deadlines that you should meet.

DO NOT DELAY WRITING YOUR THESIS UNTIL THE END OF THE ACADEMIC YEAR!

You can never overestimate the time that you need to write the final version of your thesis. Overconfidence with respect to timing is the number one killer of a good thesis. Even if you already have your results at hand, it usually takes more time to write them up then you think. Students often tend to believe that they first need to come up with the final results and conclusions of their analysis before starting to put them together. This approach is WRONG. You are strongly advised to start writing the first versions of your thesis as soon as you have your very preliminary results. It is much easier to revise your text later than to compose it from scratch. Remember that your draft does not have to be perfect – its primary purpose is to demonstrate your progress.

  1. Research proposal

Writing a research proposalis very useful, as it will serve you as a roadmap towards a successful completion of your thesis. A research proposal should normally include the following points:

(a)A clear formulation of the research question that you want to provide an answer to and a brief explanation of why economists should be interested in this particular issue;

(b)A review of the literature that you have read with respect to this issue demonstrating that the topic is not yet well explored and/or that the existing literature does not provide a clear and consistent answer to your question. It may also explain why the conclusions reached in the current or past research are not applicable in some economic situations that you are interested in;

(c)If your project is empirical, describe the data that you want to use as well as data sources. Make sure you know whether the data is publically available or whether one of the universities (HSE or NES) provides access to it;

(d)If your project is theoretical, describe what is the model that most closely relates to your research question and explain how your model will be different from it and why you expect to obtain qualitatively different predictions;

  1. Thesis structure
  • Title page of the standardized format.
  • Abstract (150-300 words).Briefly describes the main results obtained in your thesis.
  • Table of contents.
  • Introduction:

This part contains the description of your main research question and explains why it is important for economists to study it, contains any real life examples, anecdotal and/or empirical evidence that motivate your point. It may also include a short description of your main empirical results and/or main ingredients of your theoretical model, as well as specify your contribution (even if minimal) to the existing research.

  • Literature review:

Literature review is more than just a summary of existing literature on your topic. Writing a good literature review is not an easy task. It should of course demonstrate your thorough knowledge of the past work in your area of research. You should also make it clear that the question you explore does not yet have a good answer that you can easily find on the web. However, the main point of this thesis section is to explain how your idea fits into the current research and how it is different from the ideas developed before. A reader of your thesis should be able to easily see the connection between your work and past research as well as to understand what your contribution to the literature is. In the section below, you will find the list of electronic resources where you may search for the relevant literature.

  • Data overview (for empirical papers):

It contains a detailed description of the data you use and specifies its sources, explains how you obtain any of your variables of interest from the variables that are in the dataset.

  • Main part:

For theoretical papers, the main part usuallycontains the following:

  • A clear and detailed description of the model assumptions.
  • Model solution and an explanation regarding how the model helps to answer your main research question. This should also include an intuitive explanation of any mathematical expressions you obtain.
  • Discussion on whether your main assumptions are realistic and suggestions on how changing them would affect your results.Any lengthy proofs should be moved to the Appendix.

For empirical papers, the main part includes:

  • A detailed description of your identification strategy, and the econometric model you estimate.
  • Estimation results that you expect to obtain (e.g., which signs the coefficients should have to support your hypothesis).
  • Description of your main empirical results. These should describe whether your hypotheses are supported, whether the coefficients you are interested in are statistically significant, whether the effects you observe are large statistically and economically. You may also include any robustness checks of your results.
  • Conclusions:

In this part,you explain once again what your main research question is and how your approach helps to answer it. You should also explain what the main drawbacks of your model are. This includes whether the assumptions you make are realistic enough and which of them are crucial for obtaining your main results. You may also make suggestions for future research.

  • References:

Any sources that you cite should be listed here. The list is usually sorted in the alphabetical order with the surname of the first author. The most simple way to figure out how to compile such a list is to pick any paper published in one of the top journals (such as American Economic Review or Quarterly Journal of Economics) and follow the same citation style.

  • Appendix (tables, figures, proofs):

Any lengthy tables and figures that you did not include in the main text should be presented in this part.

  1. Literature sources

To search for academic literature on your topic you may use both the resources available to you through HSE and NES. This is true for paper as well as electronic sources. A comprehensive list of resources available to you via HSE library website can be found here:

The most frequently used electronic catalogues for Economics papers are:

  • JStor:
  • ScienceDirect:
  • Wiley Online Library:
  • Springer Link:

There are alternative ways to look for relevant papers:

  • You may perform a keyword search via Google Scholar service (scholar.google.com);
  • You may perform a keyword search on the website of a specific journal.
  1. Contacting your advisor

It is your responsibility to contact your advisor and discuss your work on a regular basis.Normally each advisor has their own schedule of meetings with the students. However, if you feel that you need more feedback on your thesis make sure you have asked for an additional appointment.

  1. Language

You may choose to write your thesis in Russian or English. Writing your thesis in English does not provide any additional points to your grade and serves only as an opportunity for you to train your writing skills. If you choose to write in English, you are strongly encouraged to make an appointment with the Academic Writing Centre and discuss your final version of the thesis before submission. You should reserve your time slot with the AWCwell in advance,as it will be increasingly more difficult to get it closer to submission deadline.

  1. Criteria of a good thesis

An excellent thesis should demonstrate:

  • Ability to clearly state and motivate the research problem;
  • An in-depth knowledge of existing literature on the chosen topic;
  • Ability to critically assess and analyse the sources of scientific information on the chosen topic;
  • Ability to develop your own arguments and support them with the scientific methods you have learnt;
  • Ability to provide some elements of novelty in your research. These may include a research question that has not been studies before, a new method or approach to studying a specific research problem, a novel modification of already existing approach that allows to derive new conclusions about the problem of interest, or an application of an existing theory to a different situation where it may provide new insights.
  1. Examples of good theses

If you want to get some idea of what a good thesis means you may take a look at the master level theses defended at NES in previous years and published in the “Best Student Papers” series:

Of course, it does not mean that we expect you to demonstrate the same level of research as the master students. However, these works may provide you with an example of what a good student paper may look like in terms of choosing a research question, literature review and presentation of the main results. Since you are the first graduating class, future generations of undergraduate students will use your best theses as a benchmark. Make sure to provide them with really good examples!

  1. Academic dishonesty

All submitted undergraduate theses are subject to plagiarism check through the electronic antiplagiarism system of HSE. All forms of plagiarism in your thesis are prohibited. Representing someone else’s work as a part of your thesis is a violation of academic integrity. Any source of information (a book, a paper, a website, etc.) that you use should be properly cited. To better understand different forms that academic dishonesty may take please work through the tutorial following this link:

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