Master Theses

In general the Chair of Public and Behavioral Economics supervises Master theses in the following areas:

  • Economics of Education
  • Behavioral Economics
  • Field and Laboratory Experiments
  • Public Economics
  • Economics and Machine Learning

If you consider writing your thesis at our chair:

We expect you to have solid knowledge in the area that you want to write your thesis in, for example, if you want to write your thesis in the field of "Economics and Machine Learning", we expect you to have theoretical and practical skills in programming (R, Python) including knowledge in specific packages such as sklearn, PyTorch, and TensorFlow.

Please take note of the following information.

Applying for a master thesis

  • In general, you are responsible to ensure that you fulfill all the necessary requirements to be eligible to write a thesis and that you comply with all the rules prescribed by your study program. You need to ensure this by consulting the Prüfungsordnung and/or the Studienbüro regarding the official regulations for Master theses.
  • You need to submit a formal application by e-mail (public-economics@uni-mainz.de). It should include the following information:
    • The study program you are enrolled in and the number of semesters you have been studying
    • Your most recent transcript
    • A recent CV
    • A short letter of motivation, describing your general areas of interest, one or several potential topics you can imagine working on (if available), and your methodological preferences (e.g. whether you want to work with data in your thesis). Please make sure your proposed topic or area of interest is within the scope of the areas we supervise Master theses in.
  • The submission deadlines for applications are:
    • November 1 (for theses starting in the first quarter of the following year),
    • February 1 (for the second quarter of the year),
    • May 1 (for the third quarter of the year),
    • and August 1 (for the last quarter of the year).

Procedures after your application

  • If your application has been submitted on time, we will contact you to arrange an office hour during which we will either suggest a topic to you or discuss your own suggested topic with you.
  • Following this office hour, you are required to draft an exposé based on the discussed topic. Please send an electronic version (PDF) to public-economics@uni-mainz.de
  • After having received your exposé you will be notified of the success of your application. Since we receive many applications, we reserve the right to decline your application.
  • If you are accepted, you are required to start your thesis at the beginning of the quarter that you applied for.

Writing your thesis

  • During your thesis you can contact your supervisor to arrange office hours. There is no formal limit on the number and structure of office hours, rather this depends on individual arrangements with your supervisor with regard to your concrete topic and the corresponding supervision requirements.
  • After each office hour (within 1 or 2 days) you need to send your supervisor a brief summary documenting your main points of discussion and in particular anything you agreed upon during the office hour.
  • Please make sure you acknowledge the following document including the guidelines for writing a thesis.
  • It is also compulsive to hand in an electronic PDF version of your thesis via e-mail to public-economics@uni-mainz.de.

For any inquiries related to writing a Master theses at our chair, please write an e-mail to: public-economics@uni-mainz.de