Completing the M.A. Thesis/Project
Overview and Timeline
Choosing a Thesis Advisor
Writing a Research Proposal
Components of the Thesis
Formatting
Other Campus Resources
I've assembled this information for students pursuing the M.A. degree in Economics at California State University, Sacramento. If you have questions, please the Graduate Coordinator in Economics.
All students should carefully review the M.A. Thesis/Project guidelines from the Office of Graduate Studies.
Please be aware of upcoming deadlines imposed by the Office of Graduate Studies. Also, all students are required to attend at least one Thesis Writing Workshop
Copies of M.A. Theses are available in the Department of Economics (Tahoe 3028) and in the Library.
Complete listing of M.A. Theses since 2004.
Overview and Timeline
The timeline below is based on students who begin the M.A. Program in the fall semester. Students admitted in the spring may have a slightly different timing, but the steps are the same.
For those students completing a project in lieu of a thesis, the steps are relatively similar. The primary difference is that these students will complete a shorter research project within one semester (instead of completing thesis research over two or more semesters). See the M.A. requirements for more information about the distinction between the M.A. Thesis (Option A) and Project (Option B).
During the first year:
- Enroll in 100-level elective coursework in subjects related to your intended thesis research.
You should begin thinking about which broad subjects you intend to pursue while in your first year of graduate coursework.
- Choose a 100-level economics elective taught by the full-time faculty.
Theses are supervised by full-time faculty. While part-time faculty may agree to serve as members of the thesis committee, the primary advisor is typically a full-time faculty member. Choosing courses taught by the full-time faculty will allow you to make connections that will prove valuable when you begin your thesis research. Except in rare circumstances, all 200-level coursework is taught by full-time faculty.
- Make sure that you are a classified graduate student by the end of your first year.
Conditionally classified and unclassified students may have problems later down the road if they don't change their classification status. Schedule an appointment with the Graduate Coordinator to change your status toward the end of the semester (even if grades for ECON 200A and ECON 200B are not yet posted).
- Make sure you've completed the University writing requirement by the end of the first year.
See the M.A. Requirements page for more information on the University writing requirement. You need to have this requirement satisfied as soon as possible. Historically, students have had to delay their graduation dates because they didn't satisfy this requirement in time.
During the third semester:
- Enroll in 200-level elective coursework in subjects related to your intended thesis research.
You should begin thinking about which broad subjects you intend to pursue while in your first year of graduate coursework. See FAQs for advice on what to do when 200-level electives you are interested in are not being offered. Students should begin preliminary work on their thesis the semester before they plan to graduate. For most students, this means while they are enrolled in ECON 200C: Advanced Economic Theory and ECON 241: Applied Econometric Methods. Both of these courses will provide you with invaluable skills in quantitative analysis and research methods.
- Choose a research topic based on your coursework. (first 3-5 weeks of the semester)
It really doesn't make sense to tackle a subject you know little or nothing about. You should draw on your experience in your coursework to choose a research topic. This is why your choice of elective coursework is important for successful completion of your thesis.
- Meet with a potential thesis advisor. (halfway through the semester)
Once you have a formal proposal completed, you should make an appointment to meet with your intended faculty advisor. You should have a formal proposal completed, this allows the potential advisor to give you the most effective feedback. The faculty appreciate students who have given careful thought to their intended research topics - we can tell when someone hasn't.
- File your Advancement to Candidacy form. (deadline: November 1 for Spring registration; March 1 for Summer registration; May 1 for Fall registration)
Filing your Advancement to Candidacy form will allow you to register for ECON 500: Master's Thesis in the following semester. While a thesis advisor's signature is not required for this form (only the Graduate Coordinator needs to sign it), it is ideal for the student to already have an advisor chosen.
- Write a thesis proposal/prospectus. (no later than halfway through the semester)
ECON 200C, ECON 241, and 200-level economics courses with prerequisites (ECON 230, ECON 238, and ECON 290) typically involve the drafting of a thesis proposal. You should take full advantage of ECON 200C and ECON 241 to begin work on your thesis research. See my tips on writing a research proposal. This is not a formal requirement, but you should have a well-defined research question before the beginning of the semester during which you plan to take ECON 500: Master's Thesis. It is very difficult to formulate a research question and finish a thesis on one semester. It is in your best interest to spread out this work as much as possible and take full advantage of the 200-level coursework.
During the fourth semester:
- Thesis research
You should make regular appointments to meet with your thesis advisor to insure that you complete your thesis in a timely manner. If you do not make satisfactory progress on your thesis, you may not receive credit for ECON 500. See FAQs for information on what happens if you do not complete your thesis within the semester. While working on your thesis, your primary advisor will help you to select a second reader for your thesis committee.
- File the Application for Graduation (deadline: November 1 for Fall and March 1 for Spring and Summer)
You need to complete the Graduation Application and have your primary thesis advisor sign it. A signed copy should be given to the Graduate Coordinator.
- Oral defense of the thesis (no later than two weeks before thesis filing deadline - see #13)
All M.A. degree candidates must present their theses to the Economics faculty. The primary thesis advisor will help you schedule your oral defense and let you know when your thesis research is ready to present to the faculty. During the oral defense, students typically present their research for about 30-40 minutes. After that, faculty will ask questions about the student's research. The thesis committee determines whether or not the student has passed the oral defense, or needs to sit for another defense later on.
- File final draft of thesis (deadline: December 1 for Fall graduation; May 1 for Spring graduation)
The final draft of the thesis needs to be signed by the thesis committee members (your primary thesis advisor and second reader) and the Graduate Coordinator. The Office of Graduate Studies has relatively strict guidelines on the formatting of the thesis.
Choosing a Thesis Advisor
Graduate students need to be proactive in seeking a thesis advisor. See the timeline above to get a sense of when you should seek out a thesis advisor, and steps that you can take to insure that you are prepared to begin work on your thesis.
While it is important to seek out a thesis advisor early, you should be familiar with your research topic. The thesis advisor is to direct you in your thesis research, not to choose a topic for you. In order to choose a research topic, you should talk with your intended thesis advisor to get ideas, but you need to be familiar with the broad issues associated with your topic in order for these discussions to be productive and useful.
In anticipation of students selecting faculty to work with, below are listed the major research areas our faculty are actively exploring:
| JEL Codes | Research Area |
Faculty |
|---|---|---|
| P0-P59 | Comparative Economic Systems | Chalmers, Dube |
| O1-O57 | Economic Development |
Dube, Wang, Zhou |
| N0-N97 | Economic History |
Siegler, Wang |
| I20-I29 | Economics of Education |
Howell, Lang |
| Q0-Q59 | Environmental and Resource Economics |
Gallet, Kaplan, Kroll |
| C90-C99 | Experimental Economics |
Kaplan, Kroll |
| G0-G39 | Financial Economics |
Perez, Van Gaasbeck |
| I1-I19 | Health Economics |
Gallet |
| L0-L99 | Industrial Organization and Regulation |
Gallet, Kaplan, Kroll |
| F0-F59 | International Economics |
Dube, Van Gaasbeck, Zhou |
| J0-J89 | Labor Economics |
Howell, Lang, O'Keefe |
| E0-E69 | Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics | Perez, Siegler, Van Gaasbeck, Wang, Zhou |
| D0-D99 & C7 | Microeconomic Theory
and Game Theory |
Kaplan, Kroll, Sexton |
| D60-D79 | Public Choice | Dube, Kroll |
| H0-H89 | Public Finance | Chalmers, O'Keefe, Sexton |
| R0-R59 | Regional Economics | Chalmers, O'Keefe |
| J44 & L83 | Sports Economics | Perez |
Faculty web pages are available through the Department of Economics.
What is a JEL code?
Articles in economics journals are usually classified according to the system used by the Journal of Economic Literature (JEL). The JEL is published quarterly by the American Economic Association and contains survey articles and information on recently published books and dissertations. There are 19 main categories, each of which have numerous subcategories and subcategories. A complete list of codes and subcategories can be found at the AEA web site.
Writing a Research Proposal
Please see my Writing in Economics page for more information and resources. This section focuses on constructing a research proposal appropriate for an M.A. thesis in Economics.
Your proposal should include the following basic parts:
- Statement of the nature of the problem
What is the issue or problem this research will address? Why is it interesting, significant, and amenable to economic analysis? Unless you already have a specific research question in mind, the best place to start in with your coursework. Look over your course readings (and recommended readings in textbooks) for those classes that interested you the most.
- The research question
What is the question that is the focus of your research? A good research question is one that (i) doesn't have an obvious answer (otherwise, why bother researching it?) and (ii) is testable using data.
- Research article(s)
You should have read through at least one research article closely related to your research question before developing your proposal. The more related articles you have read, the more likely the research question will be something interesting, feasible, and appropriate for an M.A. thesis. Eventually, you will need a comprehensive literature review, so it doesn't hurt to read more papers now. Be sure you are reading these papers critically, don't read them like novels.
You should include a brief (one paragraph summary) of the research article(s) that address the same, or a similar research question. The research article must be listed in a peer-reviewed journal (e.g., not a newspaper article or internet posting - something listed on ECONLit). If you have difficulty reading research articles in Economics, see pointers on the Writing in Economics page.
- Research design
The research design is the most important part of the proposal because it explain how you will go about answering your research question. You should address the following in your research design:- What is the analytical framework of the model? The research hypothesis should follow from conceptual analysis.
- In an ideal world, what data would you need to test your hypothesis? What data have you found to test your analysis and what is the source of the data?
- You don’t need to include a detailed explanation of the statistical techniques at this stage, but if you can make use of knowledge of statistics and regression, this will be useful later on.
- References (Annotated Bibliography preferred)
List all of the references for papers that you plan to use in your paper. You should use your proposal to make sure that you understand APA style - this is the citation style used in Economics research and the style you will use in your thesis and bibliography. The most useful type of bibliography is an annotated bibliography.
Be sure to carefully read through your proposal to check for grammar and writing style. A poorly-written proposal will be difficult for your advisor to read, making it hard for him/her to give you constructive feedback. Grammatical and typographic errors not only make your proposal difficult to read, but also suggest carelessness on your part. You want to make a good impression on your potential advisor - an individual faculty member is not obligated to serve as your advisor if you don't put forth the effort to submit professional work.
Depending on the strength of your writing, you should go through about three drafts of your proposal before submitting it for a grade (in ECON 200C/241) or to your potential thesis advisor. See my Writing in Economics page for more information on drafting and general tips on writing a research paper in economics. Also, make use of the University's Writing Center for help with your writing. The Center has tutors (graduate students in English) who are able to help you with correcting systematic grammar mistakes.
In addition, I highly recommend to guide you in your thesis research:
Greenlaw, S. (2006) Doing Economics: A Guide to Understanding and Carrying Out Economics Research. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
This is a practical handbook that discusses a variety of topics you are expected to be familiar with before writing a thesis, such as how to read economics research papers, writing in economics, empirical methodology, creating a valid research design, and regression analysis. Some faculty advisors have been known to tell students to read through this handbook as a first step.
Components of the Thesis
Each student's thesis may vary in structure, depending on the research topic. However, there are basic parts that each student should have. Some of these may be combined or presented in a different order:
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Literature Review
- Economic Theory/Modeling
- Empirical Methodology
- Data Description
- Empirical Results
- Conclusions
- Bibliography (References)
See Greenlaw (2006) or my Writing in Economics page for complete descriptions.
Formatting
The Office of Graduate Studies has very specific formatting requirements for the M.A. Thesis and the M.A. Project. When you are writing/finalizing your thesis, you may find the following guides (from the Office of Graduate Studies) useful. All students MUST complete the Thesis Formatting Workshop before submitting their theses to the Office of Graduate Studies. More information can be found on the Thesis/Projects Resources page.
Other Campus Resources
Thesis Writing Workshops
Graduate Students are required to attend at least one. The Office of Graduate Studies will not accept your thesis until you have completed a workshop. A list of workshop dates for the current semester can be found on the Graduate Studies site.
Thesis Evaluations
Evaluators will be available in the Office of Graduate Studies toward the end of the semester to review and check in all theses and projects. Generally, evaluators are available during the week the theses are due with Graduate Studies.
Fall 2007 Hours
December 3- December 6, 10:00am - 6:00pm
December 7, 9:00am - 3:00pm
Library Writing Guides
A comprehensive list of guides for various subjects provided by the Sacramento State University Library. The Writing Guides (scroll to the bottom of the page)