Finance Honours Program 2007

Honours Coordinator Contact Details

Students are also encouraged to attend the School Seminars and Workshops held during Semester 1 and 2. Notification of dates and times will be via email or alternatively check the School web site at: http://www.utas.edu.au/ecofin/home/seminar.htm

To download a copy of the program: PROGRAM

Description

Aim

The Honours program in Economics is designed for those students who have performed in the top 30% of their undergraduate degree. It provides an extra year's study with a view to preparing students for

1. entry into post-graduate courses in Economics;
   
   
2. a career as a “professional economist”: ie someone capable of carrying out independent work in Economics at a high level in a research or policy environment.

Learning Outcomes

The Honours year aims to:

1. consolidate mastery of core areas in Economics covered in the undergraduate courses;
   
   
2. expand analytical abilities beyond those found in the undergraduate courses;
   
   
3. expose the student to alternative methodologies and problem-solving techniques;
   
   
4. provide a thorough grounding in research skill. The student will learn
   
   
   • to set out a research project;
   • to bring relevant economic theory, data and quantitative techniques to bear on a carefully specified problem;
   • to work without detailed supervision;
   • to work to deadlines;
     
     
5. to write up the results of a substantial research project in a clear and well organised fashion
   

A Summary of the Program

The honours program is a 1-year full-time or 2-year part-time course offered through the School of Economics and Finance at Hobart. The Honours Program consists of 50% course work and 50% supervised research. The coursework component consists of 4 units each of which involve at least 2 hours of class time per week. All 4 units will be taught in the Semester 1. Work on the dissertation starts at the beginning of Semester 1 and continues throughout the academic year. The dissertations are examined in November. Details of the requirements for the dissertation and of the units offered in 2007 are given at the end of this document.

Entry Requirements and Pre-requisites

Bachelor of Economics (or equivalent approved qualification) with an average of 65 or higher in four economics units at the 3rd year level in finance. The units are:

• BEA321 Banking and Financial Institutions
• BEA341 Research Methods for Finance
• BEA343 Corporate Finance
• BEA380 Derivate Securities
• BEA384 International Finance

Students are expected to have passed BEA342 Econometrics.

Undertaking Other Committments

The 1-year full-time honours program is an intensive course which requires total commitment. While enrolled in a 1-year full-time honours programme you cannot undertake any other study or be employed more than 8 hours per week. If you wish to undertake other studies or work more than 8 hours per week, you should consider enrolling in the 2-year part-time honours program.

The Facilities

Students will normally have access to Microsoft Office through computers in the Commerce Annex and in the Faculty Computer Laboratories. The econometrics packages ET, SHAZAM, SAS and TSP are available on the network, while access to LIMDEP and STATA can be arranged with the Honours coordinator. Finally, the database dX is also available through the network. This database contains a wealth of macroeconomic time series. If you have problems with software programs or the computing facilities (either in the Annex or Commerce Computer Labs) please contact the Honours Coordinator as soon as possible.

Tutorial and Research Work

Students will normally have the opportunity to undertake paid work in the School of Economics and Finance either as research assistants or as casual tutors/markers, contingent on available funds. Interested students should register their preferences with the honours coordinator as soon as possible.

Distination of Past Honours Students

The graduates of the School's Honours Program have consistently won positions with much sought employers, in both government and business. Former graduates of the program include the Secretary of the Treasury in Tasmania (Don Challen), the former Secretary of the Treasury in Victoria and Chancellor of the University (Michael Vertigan), and the Chief Economist of Schroeders (Brett Allender).

The table below gives details on the employment of the honours graduates of recent years.

Employment of BEc(Hons) Graduates:

Dissertation for the Degree of Bachelor of Economics with Honours

The dissertation accounts for 50% of the overall honours mark. Work on the dissertation starts at the beginning of Semester 1 and continues throughout the academic year. The dissertations are examined in November.

It is critical to get off to a good start in your dissertation research, and that relies on choosing a topic and supervisor as early as possible.

• There will be an introductory meeting with honours students the week prior to semester (see attached letter). In that meeting the Coordinator of the honours program will indicate the research interests of staff members;
  
  
• Make an appointment early in first semester with appropriate staff members and/or the Coordinator of the Honours Program to discuss your research interests;
  
  
• The Coordinator of the Honours Program will be able to suggest how to undertake preliminary work on your dissertation and will also be able to suggest members of the School with whom you should discuss possible topics;
  
  
• Staff members will offer to supervise dissertations they feel qualified to supervise. You are also encouraged to ask particular staff member if he/she would be able to supervise a topic you are interested in. If you have trouble finding a supervisor seek advice immediately from the Coordinator of the Honours Program;
  
  
• Once you have finalised your topic and Supervisor report back to the Honours Coordinator;
  
  
• Staff members will notify the Coordinator immediately they have agreed to act as supervisor to an honours student;
  
  
• The Coordinator will, in consultation with the Head of School, confirm and record the allocation of a research supervisor;
  
  
• Your Supervisor will report to the Honours Coordinator either that you are “launched”; or that further preliminary work is necessary because your original topic may not achievable, in which case you will need to go through the above procedure again. It is quite common to make a few false starts since it takes some effort to eliminate topics that are not feasible in the time available. The important thing is to get this process over as quickly as you can so that you can settle in to working on your dissertation.

There will be two Honours seminars scheduled during the year, the first during Semester 1, the second during Semester 2. Students will be required to give a presentation on their thesis topic and the proposed approach. The purpose of these seminars is:

• Seminar 1: Students present their idea for a topic and gain feedback from staff as to whether it is feasible or not.
• Seminar 2: Progress report.

There will be cause for concern with your progress if:

• you are not meeting regularly with a supervisor;
• you have not decided on a final topic a week prior to your presentation in Semester 1.

To gain an idea of the standard achieved in the past consult some of the recent dissertations held by the School of Economics and Finance. Please ask one of the School secretaries for access to these. Appendix A to these notes contains more detail on the requirements for the dissertation.

A. Honours Supervisor's Guidelines

1. The supervisor's involvement is, therefore, much less than it would be if the student were a research assistant. It is the student's responsibility to write the dissertation in conformance with the “Guide for Thesis Preparation”; distributed at the beginning of the year by the Coordinator of the Honours Program. It is consistent with this that the student may choose to reject advice offered by the supervisor. The role of the supervisor of an Honours dissertation is to:
   
   
   • Provide broad guidance to the students;
   • Advise the student where necessary; and
   • Comment on the student's research as it progresses.
     
     
2. Supervision of Honours dissertations is part of the University's quality teaching and learning process and, therefore, only supervisory arrangements which can reasonably be expected to lead to a quality outcome will be approved by the Head of School.
   
   
3. The student should have decided on a topic and been assigned to a supervisor by the Coordinator of the Honours Program. Once you have been assigned to a Supervisor it is advisable that you consult regularly with him or her.
   
   
4. While informal meetings between student and supervisor will normally have been held in semester 1, a formal meeting should be held not later than the week 10 of semester 1.
   
   
5. At this first formal meeting the topic should be clearly defined, and the supervisor should assist the student to formulate a research plan and a timetable. The timetable should make it possible for the supervisor to receive, read and comment on a complete draft of the dissertation before it is to be submitted by a date set by the Head of School. Notwithstanding the likelihood that the timetable will change as the research progresses, the student and the supervisor should each retain a copy of the timetable agreed upon.
   
   
6. The supervisor should meet the student regularly.
   
   
7. The student is directed to commence writing early in the life of the project and to write drafts of chapters regularly.
   
   
8. The supervisor should read the student's written material thoroughly before the meeting at which it is to be discussed. However, the supervisor is not expected to read an excessive number of drafts of the same chapter. The supervisor's role is to comment on and offer advice about the contents of the student's written work, not to act as a copy-editor or proof-reader.
   
   
9. The supervisor should inform the student and the Coordinator of the Honours Program as far in advance as possible, of any expected absences that will substantially interfere with the supervision.
   
   
10. If the supervisor or the student wishes to pursue publication of the results of the results jointly, an agreement to this effect should be reached at the earliest possible stage in the research project.
    
    
11. The supervisor should attempt to identify problems in the supervisory arrangement or in the progress of the student's research as early as possible. Attempts should be made to resolve such problems with the student in the first instance before the Coordinator of the Honours Program or the Head of School is involved. The student should be made aware of the possibility of a change of supervisor and may at any time make a request for such a change to the Coordinator of the Honours program.
    
12. The supervisor must keep a diary, detailing the main points that were covered at each of the regular meetings.

B1. Guidelines for the Determination of the Grades of Economics Dissertations

B2. Economic Society of Australia (Tasmanian Branch) Prize

The Tasmanian branch of the Economic Society of Australia encourages students to produce original dissertations of the highest quality. In particular, the Society is keen to see students demonstrate how economic analysis can be used to guide public policy formation and the evaluation of issues of importance to the Tasmanian and Australian economies. To this end, the Society is funding an annual prize of $500 that will be awarded to the student judged to have written the ‘best’ thesis, as determined by a panel that includes members of the School of Economics and Finance and the Economic Society. In the event of a tie, the prize will be awarded to the student whose dissertation has the most relevance to issues concerning Tasmania, though this need not necessarily imply a project that uses Tasmanian data.

C. Rules

The following rules have been prescribed in connection with dissertations

1. The Head of the School of Economics and Finance, in consultation with the Coordinator of the Honours Program, the candidate and the appropriate members of the School, will appoint a supervisor.
   
   
2. The candidate must maintain regular contact with the supervisor, keeping him or her informed of progress and consulting him or her about proposed work and the general planning of the dissertation.
   
   
3. The Candidate shall submit a dissertation topic for approval by the Coordinator of the Honours Program not later than the Easter break of the honours year.
   
   
4. The topic of the dissertation should be one in applied economics and shall generally (but not necessarily) relate to the Tasmanian or Australian economies. As such the dissertation should involve using economic arguments to analyse empirical data. While it is usually desirable to use econometric techniques in this analysis, it is not a requirement. For example, it is possible to undertake a cost-benefit analysis of some economic issue and meet the requirements relating to empirical data.
   
   
5. The student must make two presentations on their dissertation topic. For full time students the first will be on Friday 20 April (Week 7), and the second will be on Friday 31 August (Week 20). In the presentations students should outline their progress to date on their dissertation. These presentations should not go over 10 minutes. The exact requirements of presentations SHOULD be discussed with your supervisor or the Coordinator of the Honours Program. The Coordinator of the honours program will determine the timing of part-time students’ presentations, taking into account the distribution of the student’s coursework.
   
   
6. Full-time students must submit their dissertation to the Coordinator of the honours program by 3.00pm on Friday 26 October 2007. Part-time students commencing in 2007 must submit their dissertation to the Coordinator of the honours program on the submission date for full-time honours students enrolled in 2008. Extensions will not be granted, and students who do not submit their dissertation on time will receive a mark of zero for the dissertation. The only exception to this rule are cases in which students are unable, through no fault of their own, to carry out work on their dissertation for an extended period of time. In such cases the extension will be equal to the period of time the student was unable to carry out work on his or her dissertation. Supporting evidence, such as medical certificates, must be lodged with the Coordinator of the honours program. Students should be aware that notes, photocopied articles, etc. can be easily lost (for example, in one year, a student’s car was lost). Copies should be made of all critical work. In addition, data left on a computers hard disk can be lost either though theft or a hardware failure. All data should be properly backed-up. Faculty computer staff can advise students on the safest way to do this.
   
   
7. An oral examination on the subject of the dissertation will be held following submission of the dissertations in November of the Honours year.
   
   
8. The dissertation accounts for 50% of the assessment in the honours year.
   
   
9. Following the oral examination, honours students must submit three bound copies of their dissertation to the School of Economics and Finance. A copy of data used for the dissertation should be submitted on a CD-Rom. The CD will be filed in the School of Economics and Finance. Students are required to arrange and pay for the binding of their dissertation. Students may use UniPrint to bind dissertations (see the Secretary for more details). In addition, it is recommended that students retain a bound copy of their dissertation. Before binding their dissertations, students may correct the dissertation for minor errors found during the examination process. Only after the final bound copies of the dissertation are received and any outstanding dues (photocopying, faxes, laser printing, etc.) are paid will final marks be released to students.

D. Guide to Preparation

1. General
   The Dissertation should not exceed 50 A4 pages, double-spaced, using a 12-point font. Should this limit be exceeded, marks will be deducted. Where it is proposed by students to attach appendices to their work the above section is to be interpreted as meaning:
   
   (a)         An appendix may be attached to the dissertation which may then exceed the 50-page limit. If this is done, then the appendix does not count and will not be considered by the examiners.
   
   (b)        If a student wishes material in an appendix to be considered as part of the dissertation it must be counted within the 50-page limit. In addition such appendices should be placed at the end of the chapter to which they relate.

2. Format
   Dissertations should be of A4 format. Footnotes may appear at the foot of the page in which reference is made, and be numbered consecutively throughout the work, or as Notes at the end of each chapter. The left-hand or binding margin should be no less than 4cm wide and the right-hand margin should be 2cm. The top and bottom margins should be no less than 2.54 cm.

3. Arrangement
   The dissertation should incorporate in the following order:

(a)        a title page giving the title of the work, the candidate's first and surnames, the month and year of submission, and a statement that the dissertation is submitted as part of the requirements for an honours degree in economics;

(b)        a signed statement that the dissertation represents the candidate's own original work and that it contains:

(i)   no material which has already been published or otherwise used by the candidate;
(ii)   to the best of his/her knowledge, no copy or paraphrase of material previously written by another person or authority, except where due acknowledgment is made;

(c)        a preface containing:

(i)   a summary of the work in not more than 500 words;

(ii)   a description of the research procedures followed and the sources of information drawn on in the preparation of the dissertation. In addition, the candidate should give a brief assessment of the adequacy of his coverage of the chosen topic. The candidate should draw attention to any difficulty he may have had in gaining access to source material and the implications of this on the validity of his conclusions;

(d)        a table of contents;

(e)        the main body of the work, which should be set out in the appropriate form:

Section 1          Statement of the problem
Section 2          Analytical Framework
Section 3          Description and Assessment of Available Statistical Information
Section 4          Examination of Problem Based on Sections 1, 2 and 3
Section 5          Summary of Conclusions

(f)         Bibliography.

Candidates need to back up their ideas by referring to scholarly literature, works of art and inventions that they have used. Failure to do so constitutes academic dishonesty (plagiarism), a matter considered by the University of Tasmania as a serious offence. It is important that students understand how to correctly refer to the work of others and maintain academic integrity.

Student writers need to back up their ideas by referring to scholarly literature, works of art and inventions that they have used. Failure to do so constitutes academic dishonesty (plagiarism), a matter considered by the University of Tasmania as a serious offence. It is important that students understand how to correctly refer to the work of others and maintain academic integrity.

The appropriate referencing style for this unit is the Harvard system. For further information: htpp://www.utas.edu.au/library/assist/gpoa/gpoa.html

Please read the following statement on plagiarism. Should you require clarification please see your unit coordinator or lecturer.

Statement on Plagiarism and Academic Integrity

Unit Feedback

The University of Tasmania, on a regular basis, evaluates its teaching and learning environment through the Student Evaluation of Teaching and Learning (SETL) system. The University values feedback from students and from time to time you will be asked to complete a SETL evaluation for a unit of study. For more information on SETL go to:http://student.admin.utas.edu.au/setl/index.html

Unit in the Bachelor of Economics with Honours
Coursework contributes 50% of the marks of the Honours Program. The coursework component consists of 4 units each of which involve 2-3 hours of class time per week. The four units will be taught during 1st semester. These four units are:

• BEA400 Microeconomics
• BEA442 Econometrics
• BEA485 Microeconomics for Finance
• BEA486 Finance

The instructors of the units are:

• BEA400 Dr Paul Blacklow
• BEA442 Dr Nagaratnam Jeyasreedharan
• BEA485 To be confirmed
• BEA486 Dr Bruce Felmingham

The timetable for the Honours units commencing the first week of semester (starting the week of February 26, 2007) is:

Students undertaking units offered by another School should obtain timetable information from the relevant school. Timetable information can also be found at : http://student.admin.utas.edu.au/coursesenrolment/timetable/