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 piece of your bachelor.
Please note: You can enroll for this course for only 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 request to the course coordinator for a position on the waiting list.
If there are any remaining open positions, they will be allocated to students on the waiting list by the course coordinator.
Prerequisites period 2
- The student must have 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;
- Pass of academic skills assessment.
Prerequisites period 4
- The student must have 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;
- Pass of academic skills assessment.
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 digitally fills in the two evaluation forms (ECB3OKVECO evaluation form). You can check the evaluation forms in OSIRIS Student (after your supervisor finalizes 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. Under certain conditions, you can work on your own topic. In that case, you need to send a research proposal in time. See the course catalogue and the guidelines for own proposal for details.
Preliminary deadlines for such a proposal:
Period 2: 25 September 2022
Period 4: 29 January 2023
You will be notified in time if the proposal is approved.
Deadline for handing in the paper:
Period 2: 26 January 2023
Period 4: 29 June 2023
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 write a thesis, you are dealing with Research Data Management: processing data and possibly also personal data, for example when you conduct interviews. In the latter case, you are then dealing with 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 websites:
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 2022 an information session was held on The Applied Economics Research Course. The next sessions will be in September (P2) and December 2023 (P4).
Under certain circumstances it is possible for students to do an external research as part of the Applied Economics Research Course. Always contact the course coordinator of this course first, to discuss the possibilities. For the specific criteria, please check the Course Catalogue.
Approval form (pdf) (for external research as part of the Applied Economics Research Course)