Mémoire

The thesis should contain all major ingredients of a research paper. The motivation should be clear. Why is it important to study that topic? What can be expected from such a study? The conclusion should be clear and stated at the beginning of the paper. The survey of the literature should be complete and critical. Forgetting to mention an important paper is a major shortcoming of a thesis. The survey should be critical, which means that it should not be restricted to a list of presentations of papers. What are the main achievements and the drawbacks of the papers? Why are some papers more important than others? Why did the researchers focus on this question rather than that question? etc. When necessary, the thesis will contain a formal part and/or econometric estimations. In the first case, the student needs to prove that she/he has understood what a model, a definition, an example, a lemma, a theorem, a formal proof, etc. In the second case, the student needs to provide a critical assessment over and description of the data she/he uses, should clearly state and justify her/his estimation method, report and interpret tests of the model specification, and assess the economic significance of the estimation results.