Admission requirement 

In principle, every student enrolled in Business Administration, Economics or corresponding master's course can write a thesis with us. Preference is given to candidates who are interested in empirical capital market research, behavioral finance, experimental finance and asset management. For this reason, candidates should have attended our courses. Candidates who have not focused on finance during their studies should demonstrate or acquire the needed expertise. In addition, it is advisable for every student to take part in the finance seminar of our chair beforehand. Within the seminar, students have the opportunity to practice writing a scientific paper and to get a first feedback about their own performance with respect to the requirements of our chair.

Important: The application for a bachelor or master thesis is only possible after successfully completing our Moodle course "writing academic term papers/theses at the chair of finance" (current link: see University Library picture in the sidebar). To prepare for the test we have created a learning module in the same Moodle course. After successfully completing the test, further areas in the Moodle course will be unlocked for you. There you will first get access to the necessary application forms. If you are already enrolled in one of the Moodle courses of our chair, you are also admitted to the Moodle Course "writing academic term papers/theses at the chair of finance" via the meta enrollment. If you have already written a scientific paper at our chair once, you do not need to take the test again. In this case or if you have problems accessing the Moodle course, please contact our secretary's office for a manual enrollment. 

Topics

In principle, theses can be written on topics of empirical capital market research, behavioral finance, experimental finance and asset management. In addition, it is possible to work on topics in research areas where there are synergies with the research orientation of the chair.

Important: For all subject areas, the basic literature and further literature is in English!

Topic identification 

We recommend that you consider your own strengths and weaknesses as well as your main areas of study before applying in order to examine the subject of your thesis.

The following topics are currently being offered.

If none of the offered topics is of interest, there is the possibility of proposing a topic of one's own, which falls into one of the above mentioned subject areas (for Bachelor's theses only). For this purpose, a maximum three-page exposé must be submitted to the secretariat, which will briefly answer the following questions:

• What is the problem?
• In which larger context can it be placed?
• What is the practical and scientific relevance of the topic?
• Which literature and other sources can be used?
• Which contents are to be further elaborated?

The text is to be supplemented by a rough structuring proposal (table of contents).

Application

If you are interested in writing your thesis in the near future, please send your application documents (including application form, curriculum vitae, certificate of achievement and, if applicable, an exposé) as a PDF file to the secretary's office after successfully completing the Moodle course described above, or submit the documents to the secretary during the usual office hours. Applications for a thesis in the winter term (summer term) can be submitted between 01.09 and 30.09 (01.03 and 31.03). The offered topics will be published or updated a few days before the start of the application phase.

Confirmation of participation

The accepted applicants will be informed in writing 2-4 weeks after the end of the respective deadline. They will also receive the contact information of their supervisor.

The assigned thesis has to be registered shortly after the first contact with your supervisor. However, the registration conditions of the examination office and the provisions of the respective examination regulations must be taken into account.

Registration of the thesis and announcement of results

Usually, about four to six weeks after contacting your thesis supervisor for the first time, you should have agreed with him or her about the basic procedure, which should ideally be set out in a table of contents, and register your thesis using a form available from the examination office. After this form has been countersigned by Prof. Dr. Jacobs we will forward it to the examination office. You will then receive a notification by post of the latest deadline for submitting your thesis to the examination office. 

As soon as the assessment has been completed and the final grade for your thesis has been awarded, you will be notified by the examination office.

Length of the thesis and formalities

Here you can find the formal requirements for writing a thesis. Further information can be found in the Moodle course described above.