Suggested topics
For those interested in writing a Bachelor's or Master's thesis at the Institute for Economic History, we provide a list of suggested topics. Some topics are suitable for both, a BSc or MSc thesis.
Bachelor's thesis
- Trading with the bad guys. Create an index of rich country trade with non-democracies over the last two centuries.
- Everybody trades with everybody? A binary index of pairwise trade relations as a gauge of globalization over the last two centuries.
- Critical Goods. Germany’s trade dependency on critical raw materials in the long-run.
- Making sense of trade data: comparing product-level trade data for Italy and Germany, 1880- 1913.
Master's thesis
- The rise of “made in Germany”: quality specialization in Germany’s trade before 1914.
- Estimating the survival margin of trade. Replicate Besedes and Prusa (2006, 2010) on the survival margin of trade using data from Germany 1880-1913 and Italy, 1862-1913.
- Explaining the Export Success of Germany’s Chemical Industries before 1914.
- Monetary Policy Strategies in Postwar Europe: West-Germany vs. UK.
- The Contribution of cheap Energy to West-Germany’s growth miracle.
- Coaling Stations and Global Trade before 1914.
- Who benefitted from Germany’s Colonial Policy? An analysis of German joint-stock companies before 1914.