Bachelor thesis

Thesis defence periods: Defences are regularly held in June, September, and late January/early February.

Important: The thesis assignment must be submitted (uploaded) no later than three months before your planned defence.

Submission of Bachelor’s theses

Bachelor’s theses for the February 2027 defence period must be submitted by [date].

Before submitting the printed copies to the department office, you must upload your thesis to InSIS in both of the following places:

1. the Final Thesis section, and
2. the Bachelor’s thesis submission portal for course EK07/5OBP (applies to students who started their studies in the winter semester 2023/2024 or later).

At the department office, please submit:

• two printed copies of the thesis (spiral binding is acceptable),
• a signed declaration of originality (handwritten signature), and
• the Thesis Assignment (BP) document bearing the electronic signatures of all parties involved.

The Department of Economics will set the exact date and time of each defence; these cannot be changed.

Late submissions will not be accepted.

Bachelor Seminar and Thesis: From Topic Selection to Defence

Every student must write and defend a final thesis in order to complete their studies. Thesis defences are regularly held in June, September, and late January/early February.

Key requirements

• Your thesis topic must be registered in InSIS at least three months before your defence.
• Students who started their studies in the winter semester 2023/2024 or later must be enrolled in the Bachelor Seminar (5EN710) in the semester in which they submit and defend their thesis.

Mandatory procedure

1. Browse the proposed topics. The department website lists topics proposed by our teachers, within which you can develop your thesis. Please consider only teachers from the department that guarantees your study programme.

2. Choose early. Each supervisor can take on only a limited number of students, as supervising a thesis is time-consuming, so choose your topic well in advance.

3. Contact a supervisor. If a topic and its description appeal to you, contact the relevant teacher and agree on a specific thesis assignment within that topic. Alternatively, you can propose your own topic: once you have formulated it, discuss it (in person or by e-mail) with a member of the department who will supervise you. When choosing a supervisor, consider especially their professional focus in relation to your topic. The areas each teacher works on are usually listed on the department website. These are broad thematic areas; your own topic will naturally be much more specific, so think it through beforehand and approach the teacher with a clear idea.

Please note: Do not use the “Suggest a topic” button in InSIS. Contact the teacher directly instead.

4. Prepare the thesis assignment. How to find a good topic (the foundation of a successful thesis) is described in detail in the Methodological Guidelines for Writing Theses at the Faculty of Economics and Business. You will finalise the specific thesis assignment together with your supervisor. It includes:

• the aim of the thesis,
• the importance, relevance, or expected contribution of the topic,
• a description of the theoretical part,
• a description of the practical part,
• keywords, and
• a list of academic literature.

5. Get the assignment approved. Send the final version of the assignment to your supervisor electronically. The supervisor creates the assignment in InSIS and either fills it in or allows you to edit it. Once finalised, it is approved electronically in this order: by you, your supervisor, the head of the department, and the study programme guarantor. Only when all of them have approved it is it confirmed that you may defend a thesis on this topic. Until then, the arrangement exists only between you and your supervisor; from that moment on, it is official.

6. Check your earliest possible defence date. Once your supervisor enters the assignment, a “Final Thesis” icon will appear in your Student Portal. Click it and select “View Assignment” to see, among other details, the earliest date on which you can defend. This is very important: you can defend your thesis no earlier than three months after the assignment is issued, and departments may set an even longer period. Do not leave choosing your topic too late, or you may have to extend your studies while waiting to defend.

7. Study the Methodology before you start writing. Before you begin, make sure you have read all the instructions in the Methodology for Writing Theses 2024 at the Faculty of Economics, Prague University of Economics and Business. They are binding.

8. Meet the submission deadline. Defences always take place during the examination period. Because a reviewer (opponent) must assess your thesis after submission, the faculty sets deadlines by which theses must be submitted in order to be defended in a given period. These dates are published on the department website.

9. Register for the defence. To be able to defend at all, you must register the defence course. In the Student Portal, go to “Extra-semester courses” and enrol in “Bachelor Thesis Defence” (or “Thesis Defence”). Without this registration, you cannot be assigned a defence date.

Please study the Methodology carefully. It contains all the important information and deadlines for writing your thesis.

Please learn the Methodology well, where you can find all the important information and terms for your thesis writing!

Methodology-for-writing-theses 2024

As students of the Economics programme, you should focus primarily on topics within this discipline. You can choose from the supervisors and general topic areas listed below, or browse the teachers’ current topics in InSIS. Please note that this list is not exhaustive.

If you choose a supervisor who is not on the list below, please note that your supervisor must be a member of the Faculty of Economics.

Ing. Pavel Potužák, Ph.D.

• What caused the last financial crisis? Saving glut or monetary glut?
• The ethics of fractional reserves
• Can the nominal interest rate be negative?
• Can the real interest rate be negative?
• The new monetarism
• 100-percent vs. fractional reserves
• “Current” financial crisis
• Friedman’s rule of optimal growth rate of money supply
• Is Taylor’s rule operable?
• What is wrong with deflation?
• Will there be hyperinflation in the USA?
• Ramsey tax
• Is the money multiplier stable?

Ing. Lukáš Máslo, Ph.D.

• Explanation vs. prediction: a role of assumptions in economics
• Positive vs. normative economics: should economics be value-free?
• Economic anthropology: do the notions of economic theory keep their respective meanings throughout time?
• A just price: a myth or reality?
• Usury: A Case Against Justice
• Nominal Deflation: what would an economy with a fixed money supply look like?
• Catholic social teaching: theory of distributism and its relevance for economics
• Socio-economic changes in the Russian society during the last century of the Romanov dynasty

Ing. Klára Čermáková, Ph.D.

• Convergence and inequality – do economies converge?

Ing. Martin Slaný, Ph.D.

• Labor market rigidities and unemployment,
• Economic policy in Great recession,
• Alternative monetary policy regimes,
• Monetary theory in modern heterodox economics,
• (Macro)economic analysis of EU funds,
• Shadow economy analysis.

Ing. Barbora Růžičková, Ph.D.

• Waste (plastics) regulation at the supranational level, International organisations, and Sustainable development
• Economic Impacts of EU Plastics Regulation on Member States
• Global Plastics Treaty: Potential Economic Effects on International Trade
• The Economics of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) in Supranational Plastics Regulation
• Developing Countries and Supranational Plastics Regulation: Economic Challenges and Opportunities

• The Role of the World Bank in Financing Sustainable Development Projects
• IMF Conditionality and Economic Growth in Developing Countries
• UNEP and the Economics of Global Environmental Governance
• OECD and Sustainable Development: Policy Transfer and Economic Impacts
• The Financing of the Sustainable Development Goals: Role of Multilateral Institutions
• The Impact of IMF and World Bank Policies on Poverty Reduction: An Economic Perspective
• OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and Sustainable Development
• The UN’s 2030 Agenda: Economic Challenges of Implementing the SDGs
• Financing the United Nations Environment Programme: Economic Analysis of Contributions and Fund Structure