Master Thesis Proposal

Institute of Political Studies

Faculty of Social Sciences
Charles University in Prague

Author:
E-mail:
Phone:
Specialisation:

EXAMPLE !!!
PLEASE DELETE THESE 2 PAGES !
Date: 2.3.2012

Firstname Yoursurname
yoursurname@domain.com
123456789
IEPS

Supervisor:
E-mail:
Phone:
Defense
Planned:

Prof. Willing Reader, PhD

reader@fsv.cuni.cz
987654321
February 2014

Notes: The proposal should be 2-3 pages long. Save it as Yoursurname_proposal_date.doc and send it to
benacekv@fsv.cuni.cz. Subject of the e-mail must be: Your surname_JPM194_proposal-date).

Proposed Topic:
Politics and Policies of Subsidy Competition in Case of Foreign Direct Investment
Registered in SIS: Yes

Date of registration: 13.01.2013

Topic Characteristics:
My thesis will focus on governmental incentives for foreign direct investment (FDI) and the
corresponding international competition. The principal reason why governments grant subsidies to
multinational companies (MNC) lies in their expectation of productivity externalities spilling over from
MNCs to local firms. These effects are hardly internalizable, that is why governments are believed to
be entitled to try to attract more FDI than would correspond to the market equilibrium. Thus, many
scholars argue that the global level of incentives is above-optimal and that supranational coordination
would reduce it. I will try to show whether this really has to be the case; I will also attempt to
empirically verify my models. I will inquire into intra-industry FDI spillovers in a large quantitative
literature survey. I am going to use data from the World Competitiveness Report, World Banks World
Development Indicators, and additionally collect some data myself.
Some more description characterising the specificity of your research.

Hypotheses:
1. Intra-industry productivity spillovers from FDI are statistically and economically significant.
2. There is a difference between the results of top-journal and other empirical articles on FDI
spillovers.
3. Researchers publish preferably significant and positive estimates of FDI spillovers.
4. Supranational coordination does not necessarily lower the offered amount of incentives.
5. International subsidy competition for FDI is fierce.
Methodology:
Concerning the FDI spillover literature in the first part of the thesis, I am going to employ the
quantitative literature review methodology, commonly called a meta-analysis. Meta-analysis rigorously
combines the outcomes of several works that study the same phenomena and use the same or
comparable metrics. I will use especially the meta-regression procedure but, aside from the standard
approach, I will employ robust, pseudo-panel, and probability meta-regression as well. Evaluating the
combined significance, I will not rely only on the standard vote-counting method but I will also employ
a more advanced methodology using meta-statistics. Concerning the theoretical models of investment
incentives, my methodology will be mostly microeconomic; I am going to use especially the classical
models of oligopoly Cournot, Stackelberg, etc. When trying to verify/falsify my microeconomic
models, I will rely mostly on statistical methods, namely cross-section regressions, and on the surveys
at the enterprise level.

Outline:
1. Introduction
2. Theoretical background and the review of world literature
3. An Analysis of Intra-Industry FDI Spillovers
a. Combined Significance
b. Regression Analysis
c. Bias in some analyses
4. The Supply of FDI Incentives
a. Policy Design of Investment Incentives
b. Optimal Investment Incentives versus Politics of Vested Interests
c. The General Approaches Supported by UNCTAD and WTO
5. Weak or Strong Form of Competition?
a. Description of the Data
b. Regression Model
c. Discussion of the Results
6. Conclusions
7. References / Bibliography
References / Bibliography:

Aitken, B. J. & A. E. Harrison (1999): Do Domestic Firms Benefit from Direct Foreign Investment?
Evidence from Venezuela. American Economic Review 89(3): pp. 605618.
Bjorvatn, K. & C. Eckel (2006): Policy Competition for Foreign Direct Investment between Asymmetric
Countries. European Economic Review 50(7): pp. 18911907.
Blomstrm, M. & A. Kokko (2003): The Economics of Foreign Direct Investment Incentives. NBER
Working Papers 9489, National Bureau of Economic Research.
Blundell, R. & S. Bond (1998): Initial Conditions and Moment Restrictions in Dynamic Panel Data
Models. Journal of Econometrics 87(1): pp. 115143.
Castellani, D. & A. Zanfei (2007): Multinational Companies and Productivity Spillovers: Is There a
Specification Error? Applied Economics Letters 14(14): pp. 10471051.
Grg, H. & E. Strobl (2001): Multinational Companies and Productivity Spillovers: A Meta-analysis.
Economic Journal 111(475): pp. 72339.
Haaparanta, P. (1996): Competition for Foreign Direct Investment. Journal of Public Economics 63(1):
pp. 14153.
Haufler, A. & I. Wooton (2006): The Effects of Regional Tax and Subsidy Co-ordination on Foreign
Direct Investment. European Economic Review 50(2): pp. 285305.
Javorcik, B. S. (2004): Does Foreign Direct Investment Increase the Productivity of Domestic Firms?
In Search of Spillovers through Backward Linkages. American Economic Review 94(3): pp. 605
627.
Stanley, T. D. (2001): Wheat from Chaf: Meta-analysis as Quantitative Literature Review. Journal of
Economic Perspectives 15(3): pp. 131150.

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Author

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Supervisor *

Remark: These two signatures are required only when you apply for an official registration of your MT
project with Dr. Riegl

Master Thesis Proposal

Institute of Political Studies
Faculty of Social Sciences
Charles University in Prague

Date: dd.mm.year

Author:
E-mail:
Phone:
Specialisation:

Supervisor:
E-mail:
Phone:
Defense Planned:

Firstname Yoursurname
yoursurname@domain.com
...
IEPS

Prof. Willing Reader, PhD.

supervisorX@email.com
...
February 2014

Proposed Topic:
The expected title of your thesis (you can adjust it slightly later).
Registered in SIS: Yes/No Date of registration: dd.mm.year (in case of No give an expected date)
Remark: the registration must be done by your supervisor but, prior to that, it requires the approval by Dr. Riegl.

Topic Characteristics:
Briefly describe the topic to an intelligent educated non-specialist. Explain why it is interesting and
relevant and what your contribution should be. Include a concrete description of the material you are going to
work with (e.g., key topic and its author; data sources). Remember that you work in social science (and not in
physics or chemistry) a thesis which has no human (social) conflict of interest (i.e. a plot which Shakespeare
mastered so well), your thesis is worthless. You must describe here the main actors (i.e. the agents of your
conflict) and the rules guarding their strife.

Working hypotheses:
Remark: A 'working hypothesis' is a theoretical statement that is provisionally accepted as a basis
for further research in the hope that a tenable theory and empirical evidence will be produced in
your research. A hypothesis will be later tested in your thesis and proven either correct or false.
Working hypothesis is therefore constructed as a statement of expectations, which can be linked
to the exploratory research and empirical investigation. It is used as a conceptual framework for
your qualitative (theoretical) and quantitative (empirical) analysis.
Write down at least 3 principal hypotheses that you would like to defend/verify/falsify in your thesis (it is
possible that you will finally test slightly different ones during your research). You should be able to formulate
hypotheses even for narrative/theoretical topics. If you have difficulties with identifying 2-3 reasonable
hypotheses then your topic has no contents and you might consider changing it for somethig more reasonable.

1.
2.
3.
4.

Hypothesis #1:
Hypothesis #2:
Hypothesis #3:
Other hypotheses:

Methodology:
The methodology should correspond to the hypotheses and the available material specified above.
You can briefly describe which theoretical and analytical concepts based on deduction or induction
(i.e. on empirical or experimental approaches) you are going to employ.
Outline:
The expected structure of your thesis.
References / Bibliography:
List the most important papers/books you are going to use (specify at least 5 relevant references).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Author

Supervisor