Theses – Institute of Money and International Finance

Bachelor Theses

Centralized Application Procedure

All students, who want to write their bachelor theses in economics and management, have to use the centralized application procedure, offered by the dean’s office. The procedure is usually taking place in the beginning of each year. More informations can be found on the faculty’s website.

After beeing allocated to our institute

If you have been assigned to our institute as part of the central application process, you can select a bachelor's thesis topic and set the registration date.

An overview of possible bachelor thesis topics can be found below. You can generally choose between an empirical or theoretical bachelor thesis. The empirical bachelor's theses are based on simple applied scientific work on monetary policy topics and include, for example, a correlation analysis or a simple regression analysis. In principle, the higher standards for empirical work are also taken positively into account in the evaluation.

We strongly recommend taking a seminar at the Institute for Money and International Finance before working on your bachelor's thesis. The seminars are offered every semester and enable in every study:

to familiarize yourself with possible topics in the field of money and international finance and the associated academic literature,
to practice academic writing, as it used at the Institute for Money and International Finance.

We also recommend taking the “Programming for Finance” course at the Institute for Finance and Commodity Markets to work on an empirical bachelor’s thesis. In this course you can familiarize yourself with initial data work and the R software.

To register for your bachelor's thesis (topic selection and registration time), please use the contact form below and send it at least 14 days before the deadline of your work begin. Here you can enter two topic preferences. We will contact you with enough distance to your official registration date with the official registration.

When you have completed your work, please send it in digital form to sekretariat@gif.uni-hannover.de and submit a double-sided, single-stapled paper version of the work to us. You can either hand this in on Wednesdays at the institute or at any time to the Conti Campus gatekeeper and ask that you put it in the mailbox of Prof Dräger/Institute for Monetary and International Finance.

Possible registration points for your bachelor thesis

Summer Term

March 1st, April 15th and June 1st

Winter Term

September 1st, October 15th and November 1st

Topics regarding International financial markets

Empirical: Private debt and real economic demand
Empirical: Credit growth and international capital flows
Empirical: Current account balances and financial flows in the Eurozone
Empirical: Global current account imbalances and the financial crisis
Empirical: The foreign economic prosperity of nations

Topics regarding macroeconomic expectations

Empirical: How do macroeconomic expectations of households vary according to socioeconomic criteria?

Das, S., Kuhnen, C. M., und Nagel, S. (2020): Socioeconomic Status and Macroeconomic Expectations. The Review of Financial Studies, 33(1), 395–432, Link.

D’Acunto, F., Malmendier, U. und Weber, M., 2022. What do the data tell us about inflation expectations? NBER Working Paper No. 29825, Link.

Data: University of Michigan Survey of Consumers, ECB Consumer Expectations Survey, NYFed Survey of Consumer Expectations
Empirical: Inflation expectations of households and willingness to consume

Bachmann, Rüdiger, Tim O. Berg, and Eric R. Sims (2015): Inflation Expectations and Readiness to Spend: Cross-Sectional Evidence. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 7(1), 1–35, Link.

Dräger, L. und Nghiem, G. (2021): Are Consumers‘ Spending Decisions in Line with a Euler Equation? The Review of Economics and Statistics, 103 (3), 580–596, Link.

Data: University of Michigan Survey of Consumers, ECB Consumer Expectations Survey, NYFed Survey of Consumer Expectations
Empirical: What influence does monetary policy news have on macroeconomic expectations?
Empirical: Macroeconomic expectations of professional forecasters in the business cycle

Oinonen, S., und Paloviita, M. (2017): How Informative are Aggregated Inflation Expectations? Evidence from the ECB Survey of Professional Forecasters. Journal of Business Cycle Research, 13, 139–163, Link.

Data: ECB Survey of Professional Forecasters, US Survey of Professional Forecasters (Philadelphia Fed)
Empirical: The role of uncertainty on macroeconomic expectations among households

Coibion, O.; Georgarakos, D., Gorodnichenko, Y., Kenny, G. and Weber, M. (2024): The Effect of Macroeconomic Uncertainty on Household Spending. American Economic Review, 114(3), 645-677, Link.

Dräger, L. und Lamla, M. (2016): Explaining Disagreement on Interest Rates in a Taylor-Rule Setting. The Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 119(4), 987-1009, Link.

Data: University of Michigan Survey of Consumers, ECB Consumer Expectations Survey, NYFed Survey of Consumer Expectations
Empirical: Anchoring long-term inflation expectations

Gürkaynak, R., Levin A. und Swanson, E. (2010): Does inflation targeting anchor long-run inflation expectations? Evidence from long-term bond yields in the U.S., U.K. and Sweden. Journal of the European Economic Association, 8(6), 1208-1242, Link.

Kumar, S., Coibion, O., Afrouzi, H. und Gorodnichenko, Y. (2015): Inflation Targeting Does Not Anchor Inflation Expectations: Evidence from Firms in New Zealand. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Fall 2015, 151-208, Link.

Dräger, L. und Lamla, M. (2018): Is the Anchoring of Consumers’ Inflation Expectations Shaped by Experience? CESifo Working Paper No. 7042, Link.

Data: University of Michigan Survey of Consumers, NYFed Survey of Consumer Expectations, Federal Reserve Economic Database (FRED)
Do macroeconomic expectations follow the theoretical connections in macro models?

Coibion, O. und Gorodnichenko Y. (2015): Is the Phillips curve alive and well after all? Inflation expectations and the missing disinflation. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 7(1), 197-232, Link.

Dräger, L.; Lamla, M.J. und Pfajfar, D. (2016): Are Survey Expectations Theory-Consistent? The Role of Central Bank Communication and News. European Economic Review, 85, 84-111, Link.

Carvalho, C. und Nechio, F. (2014): Do people understand monetary policy? Journal of Monetary Economics, 66, 108-123, Link.
Which model best describes how households form inflation expectations?

Coibion, O. und Gorodnichenko, Y., 2012. What Can Survey Forecasts Tell Us about Information Rigidities? Journal of Political Economy, 120(1), 116-159, Link.

Coibion, O. und Gorodnichenko, Y., 2015. Information Rigidity and the Expectations Formation Process: A Simple Framework and New Facts. American Economic Review, 105(8), 2644-78, Link.

Malmendier, U. und Nagel, S., 2016. Learning from inflation experiences. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 131(1), 53-87, Link.

Maćkowiak, B.; Matějka, F. und Wiederholt, M. (2023): Rational Inattention: A Review. Journal of Economic Literature, 61(1), 226-273, Link.

Topics regarding macroeconomic effects of monetary policy

Empirical: Inflation and income inequality

Albanesi, S. (2007): Inflation and inequality. Journal of Monetary Economics, 54(4), 1088-1114, Link.

Data: Deininger, K., Squire, L., 1996. A new data set measuring income inequality. World Bank Economic Review 10, 565–591 (Gini Koeffizient für Einkommensungleichheit) und OECD, World Bank, IMF (Inflation)
Empirical: Do monetary policy shocks increase income inequality?

Coibion, O., Gorodnichenko, Y., Kueng, L. und Silvia, John (2017): Innocent Bystanders? Monetary policy and inequality. Journal of Monetary Economics, 88(C), 70-89, Link.

Data: Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX), geldpolitische Schocks von Romer und Romer (2004), upgedated von Wieland und Yang (2020), Link.
Should monetary policy prevent speculative bubbles?

Roubini, N., 2006. Why Central Banks Should Burst Bubbles. International Finance, 9(1), 87-107, Link.

Posen, A. S., 2006. Why Central Banks Should Not Burst Bubbles, Commentary. International Finance, 9(1), 109-124, Link.

Schularick, M.; ter Steege, L. und Ward, F. (2021): Leaning against the Wind and Crisis Risk. American Economic Review: Insights, 3(2), 199-214, Link.

Gambacorta, L. und Signoretti, F. M. (2014): Should monetary policy lean against the wind?: An analysis based on a DSGE model with banking, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control,43, 146-174, Link.
The role of macroprudential regulation for financial market stability and monetary policy transmission

Davis, E. P. and Karim, D., 2010. Macroprudential Regulation – the Missing Policy Pillar. National Institute Economic Review, 211 , R3-R16, Link.

Aikman, D.; Bridges, J.; Kasjyap, A. und Siegert, C. (2019): Would Macroprudential Regulation Have Prevented the Last Crisis? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 33(1), 107-130, Link.

Agénor, P.-R. und Pereira da Silva, L. A. (2014): Macroprudential regulation and the monetary transmission mechanism, Journal of Financial Stability, 13, 44-63, Link.

Topics regarding financial crises

Empirical: Triple Debt Crises: Do banking, currency and sovereign debt crises often occur at the same time and how can triple debt crises be prevented?

Reinhart, C. M. und Rogoff, K. S. (2011): From Financial Crash to Debt Crisis. American Economic Review, 101, 1676-1706, Link.

Reinhart, C. M. and Rogoff, K. S. (2009): This Time is Different – Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Princeton University Press, Link.

Daten: Link
Transmission of monetary policy at the zero interest rate bound: How do unconventional monetary policy instruments influence the financial markets and the real economy?

Gambacorta, L.; Hofmann, B. und Peersman, G. (2014): The effectiveness of unconventional monetary policy at the zero lower bound: A cross-country analysis. Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 46(4), 615-642, Link.

Joyce, M.; Miles, D.; Scott, A. und Vayanos, D. (2012): Quantitative easing and unconventional monetary policy – an introduction. The Economic Journal, 122(564), F271-F288, Link.

Bernanke, B. S. (2020): The New Tools of Monetary Policy, American Economic Journal, 110(4), 943-983, Link.
Unconventional monetary policy after the financial crisis - Quantitative easing as a controversial monetary policy measure

Claeys, G. und Leandro, Á. (2016): The European Central Bank's quantitative easing programme: Limits and risks. Bruegel Policy Contribution, 4, Link.

Gambacorta, L.; Hofmann, B. und Peersman, G. (2014): The effectiveness of unconventional monetary policy at the zero lower bound: A cross-country analysis. Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 46(4), 615-642, Link.

Joyce, M.; Miles, D.; Scott, A. und Vayanos, D. (2012): Quantitative easing and unconventional monetary policy – an introduction. The Economic Journal, 122(564), F271-F288, Link.

Kuttner, K. N. (2018): Outside of the Box: Unconventional Monetary Policy in the Great Recession and Beyond. Journal of Economic Perspectives 32 (4), 121-146, Link.

Woodford, M. (2016): Quantitative easing and financial stability, NBER Working Paper Nr. 22285, Link.

Registrate for the topic of your bachelor thesis

Master Theses

Topics for your master thesis are not offered in advance, but have to be suggested by the students and developed in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Dräger or the employees of the institute. In general, we only support empirical master theses in the context of money and international finance.

If you want to write your master thesis at the Institute of Money and International Finance, please send a short E-Mail to Prof. Dr. Dräger, which includes your prefered starting date and topic suggestion. Alternatively, you can visit the office hour as well.