Thesis Guidelines

The Master's thesis is written towards the end of the Master of Science UZH ETH in Quantitative Finance over a period of 6 months. It is graded and accounts for 30 ECTS credit points. 

The students of the joint program MSc UZH ETH in Quantitative Finance have to conclude the program with a colloquium talk of 30 minutes in which they present their Master's thesis. The colloquium talks are open to the public.

An information event on  Master's Thesis  and Graduation  is organized every spring for MSc QF UZH ETH students.

We want to appraise your ability

• to identify and analyze a problem on your own; and
• to apply the tools, techniques and concepts you have learned in the courses with little or even no guidance.

You have a lot of flexibility in your choice of project:

• One possible choice is to write a 'clinical paper' such as those published regularly in the Journal of Financial Economics. A clinical paper is an extended case study, which uses rather more empirical finance techniques than do the more classical, Harvard-type case studies.
• Another possible choice is to conduct an empirical study on a sample of companies, rather than the single company that is the focus of a clinical paper.
• Yet another choice is to write a theory paper like those published in Mathematical Finance or Finance and Stochastics.

Whatever the choice you make, you should guard against writing a simple survey of the literature. Such surveys do not fulfill the requirements for the Master's thesis.

Experience shows that a Master's thesis is in general not ready for a publication, because it is - and should be - more detailed than a published paper. Therefore, if you aim for a publication, plan on investing substantial time after handing in your Master's thesis.

Group work is not permitted.

The Master's thesis presentation consists of a 30 minutes presentation followed by questions. It is open to the public and will be officially announced.

Any field of (mathematical) finance is acceptable, insurance related topics included. Examples of possible topics are mergers and acquisitions, distribution policy, financing policy, investment policy, restructuring activity, real options valuation, derivatives pricing, hedging, fixed-income valuation, interest rate contingent claims valuation, credit-sensitive contingent claims valuation, operational risk modelling, model risk issues, securitization, numerical methods for option valuation, time series modelling, capital allocation, performance measurement, risk measurement, and many more. 

Students can also choose or propose subjects for their Master's thesis in the DBF Theses Market of the Department of Finance of the University of Zurich.

Any professor from the Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics at the University of Zurich and any professor from the Department of Mathematics of ETH Zurich can be your thesis supervisor. In case you consider writing a Master's Thesis with a professor from the Department of Finance please proceed via the  DBF Thesis Market.

Since we encourage a strong cooperation with the financial industry, consider also the following thoughts:

• Your thesis is officially supervised by a local professor, but a practitioner comes up with the precise topic and gives you the needed guidance.

• You already have contacts to the financial industry (because you have received a tuition fee grant, for example) and you use these contacts to negotiate for an interesting project and guidance.

• You are eager to work on a practical project, but you currently lack the industry contacts. In this case, ask one of the lecturers or the Director of the MSc UZH ETH in Quantitative Finance program for contact persons.

• You might want to combine the Master's thesis with a part-time internship in the financial industry.

In any case, make sure your thesis supervisor is really interested in the topic you plan to work on.

In case of conflicts of interests, please look at the guidelines - conflicts of interest (PDF, 169 KB)

The supervisor has an important, but limited role. He/she is to ensure that the topic you have agreed on is both acceptable and feasible in the limited time, and that the method of analysis you have chosen is appropriate and correct. Once this is done, you are essentially on your own until you hand in the Master's thesis for grading.

The thesis supervisor is not expected to read a first draft of the report. However, arrange for meetings with your supervisor to report briefly about your progress so that he/she can give you some suggestions and bring you on the right track again if necessary.

The Master's thesis should be about 20-60 pages long, but it is quality and not quantity that matters. In essence, you should tell us as much as - and no more than - we need to understand what the problem is, what we can learn from it or how you have solved it.

You should familiarize yourself with the necessary text processing or typesetting software you plan to use before you start to work on your Master's thesis. If you plan on writing a mathematically-orientated thesis (i.e., lots of formulas), the free TeX/LaTeX typesetting software is a good option, but requires a substantial initial time investment.

The thesis has to be written in English and be typed and printed in reasonable quality. Exact proofreading is required and use of a spelling checker recommended.

The period allowed for completion of the Master's thesis is 6 months and starts with the formal issuance of the topic. The oral presentation of the Master's thesis has to be done within 4 weeks after the submission of the thesis. If your Master's thesis is the last module before the completion of your studies please look at the Dean's Office degree deadlines.

The Master's thesis is graded. The supervising professor will assess the work submitted including the public presentation and will inform the student in writing of the grade awarded. 30 ECTS credit points are awarded for the completion of the Master's thesis if the grade is at least 4.

After completing their final theses, students repeatedly receive requests from (mainly) German publishers for a publication. Such requests should be treated with caution. Clarify any publication with your supervisor in advance. The supervisor can impose conditions for a publication.

Ultimately however, it is your decision whether you want to publish with a publisher. You should be aware that this is not to be equated with a publication in a scientific journal.

Please check the program regulations . This page is solely for information purposes and has no legal validity.

Further information also on:

Thesis at the Faculty of Business, Economics and Informatics

Thesis at the Department of Finance - DBF Thesis Market