MScF 120 ECTS - Research Option
Master thesis
During the fourth semester, students have the option to write a Master thesis (30 ECTS) independently or during a training period at a financial institution or at the finance department of a corporation.
Students who want to write a master thesis must have acquired at least 30 ECTS in line with the MScF in Finance (90 ECTS).
Research thesis and internship thesis
Please read carefully the information sheet 2021-2022 for requirements, dates, deadlines and documents to submit.
Supervisors and topics
-
Fiechter Peter
Potential topics for the master thesis may include but are not limited to:
- Economic consequences of changes in or adoption of accounting standards, accounting regulation, or accounting rules (e.g., market reactions, cost of capital, or liquidity)
- Determinants of accounting choices
- Effects of heterogeneous accounting standards or accounting choices on information asymmetry or information precision
- Earnings management, discretionary accounting, and disclosure quality (e.g., earnings smoothing, small positive gains, value relevance, large negative net income, timely loss recognition, or target accounting)
- (Economic) consequences of fair value accounting
- Effects of banking regulation and “Too-big-to-fail” issues
- Economic consequences of (U.S.) cross-listings
Guidance for writing the Master thesis in Financial Accounting
-
Kroencke Tim
- Empirical macro-finance (asset pricing tests of consumption-based models effect of macroeconomic and monetary policy news measurement of macro-finance factors)
- Stock return anomalies (cross-sectional asset pricing tests stock return anomalies, value, profitability, size, momentum; implications for asset management)
- Return predictability (cash flow vs discount rate news; practical implementation of market-timing strategies)
- Alternative assets (FX, real estate, human capital, …)
- Strategic and tactical asset allocation; fund flow analysis; skill vs luck in asset management
- Textual analysis and asset pricing tests
-
Salva Carolina
- Corporate and international finance
- Valuation
- Financial markets
-
Sonney Frédéric
Topics for the Master thesis will be related to Asset Management and/or Capital Markets. Below are a few themes or ideas that I would be happy to discuss further:
- The Global Minimum Variance portfolio and Risk Budgeting techniques
- The determinants of "intra-market" correlations
- The value of financial analysts' forecasts for portfolio managers
- Financial analyst forecasts: skill, luck, or...?
- Stock market: do "crowded names" behave differently from the rest of the market?
- Hedge fund indices: are they representative of the industry?
- Hedge fund replication: could an "indexed" product do a good job?
- Hedge funds before and after the financial crisis. What has changed?
-
Starica Catalin
Statistical and econometric aspects of:
- The use of financial statements for firm valuation (multiple valuation, earnings forecasts)
- Enterprise valuation - accounting based modeling (cash accounting, accrual accounting, discounted cash flow valuation, residual earings model, abnormal earnings growth model)
-
Weigert Florian
- Hedge funds
- Mutual funds (investment funds)
- Empirical asset pricing
- Behavioral finance
- Risk management
Contact
Enhanced programme
Documents to download
Priting the thesis
- CIUN - UniNE printing center
- Practical guide (in French)
- Price list