Applied Economics Research Course
The full time Applied Economics Research Course is an important part of your Bachelor’s programme. The research paper you write in this course is the final step of your bachelor study.
Please note: You can enroll for this course only on one occasion in the academic year. Enrolment is only possible during the regular enrolment dates. If you missed the enrolment dates, you can send a motivated request to be enrolled to the Board of Examiners.
Prerequisites period 2
- The student must have at least 135 EC in September of the academic year in which the student wants to follow the Applied Economic Research Course. Before the start of the course the student must have passed 'Econometrics' and two level 3 courses of which at least one needs to be an economics course;
- The student must have passed the reflection report academic skills.
Prerequisites period 4
- The student must have at least 90 EC in September of the academic year in which the student wants to follow the Applied Economics Research Course;
- Before the start of the course the students must have passed 'Econometrics' and two level 3 courses of which at least one needs to be an economics course;
- The student must have passed the reflection report academic skills.
Group seminars and individual meetings.
Research plan and paper need to be handed in via OSIRIS Student (tab Cases > Thesis and graduation > applied economics research course (ECB3OKVECO)) to the research supervisor and co-reader. The supervisor checks the paper on plagiarism, grades it, and in consultation with the co-reader digitally fills in the assessment form of the paper. Additionally, the supervisor digitally fills in the assessment form ‘research group and presentation’. The assessment forms can be found here: ECB3OKVECO assessment forms. You can check the assessment forms in OSIRIS Student (after your supervisor has finalized the assessment and determined the grade in Osiris).
- Research paper; grade should be at least 5.5 not rounded up (80% of the final grade);
- Participation and feedback in the project group (10% of the final grade);
- Presentations (literature review, own research, 10% of the final grade).
For more information look at the Course Catalogue.
Students do research on a topic defined by supervisors from U.S.E. Students formulate their own research question on the topic.
Deadline for handing in the research plan:
Week 4 of the course
You will be notified in time if the research plan (proposal) is approved.
Deadline for handing in the paper:
Period 2: 23 January 2025
Period 4: 26 June 2025
Other deadlines can be found in the Course Manual.
It is not mandatory, but we recommend you to submit your thesis to the Students Theses Archive.
- Tips and tricks for managing the thesis and communicating with your supervisor
- Libguide: overview on much consulted information sources Economics
When you are doing research and writing your thesis, you are dealing with Research Data Management: collecting, processing, storing, and documenting data; possibly also personal data (for example when you conduct interviews). In case of personal data, you need to adhere to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). You also need to secure your data properly at all times. It is therefore important that you know what you have to comply with in terms of legislation and university frameworks. Please figure this out before you start writing your thesis. Your thesis supervisor can help you with this, ask for the guidelines. More information can be found on the following webpages:
U.S.E. has acquired subscriptions to Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS), Refinitiv Eikon, and Factset. WRDS provides access to Compustat and other free databases using a Web interface, SAS, Matlab, Python and R. Furthermore, WRDS offers a cloud environment with a SAS 9.4 installation. See https://uufinancedata.wordpress.com/ for more information and manuals.
In December 2023 an information session was held on The Applied Economics Research Course. The next sessions will be in September (P2) and December 2024 (P4).
Under certain conditions it is possible for students to do an external research as part of the Applied Economics Research Course. This possibility is only for students who write their thesis in P4. Proposals need to be submitted on 1 February 2025. Always contact the course coordinator first to discuss the possibilities. For the specific criteria, please check the Course Catalogue.
Guidelines (pdf) (for external research as part of the Applied Economics Research Course)