Acquis d'apprentissage

A MA thesis is a research paper, written in the format of a scientific paper, proving that the student has, at least, succeeded in fully understanding by her/himself some consistent set of scientific contributions that she/he has not been taught during the courses. In addition, the thesis may itself contain a contribution to the literature.

Contenu

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.

Table des matières

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Méthodes d'enseignement

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Méthode d'évaluation

The grade of 12/20 can only be obtained if there is no gap in the literature review, no misunderstanding of the reviewed material and if the writing is clear. The grade of 14/20 is the typical grade if the student shows that she/he has a sound understanding of the problem she/he studies and if the thesis is written according to the standards of a research paper. If the thesis does not contain any new result, but offers a high level survey that brings new insights on the literature, the grade can go up to 16/20. If, in addition, the thesis contains some new results, even if these results are clearly not sufficient for the paper to be a PhD chapter, the grade can go up to 18/20. The jury will also adjust the grade by taking account of the difficulty of the reviewed literature, the amount of time that was needed to compose the bibliography, etc.

Langue d'instruction

Français