Insurance topics can be divided into life insurance and non-life insurance. They address different kinds of risks. There are several types of products considered as life insurance:  payments to the policyholder's beneficiaries in the event of death, income to individuals unable to work due to a disability, pensions, etc. Non-life insurance is designed to protect against other types of risks, such as property damage or liability.

We can discuss your specific interests concerning insurance. For example, a possible thesis topic can be an analysis of a particular insurance product or methodology of insurance premium computation.

Supervisor: Roman Kozlov.

Charitable donations by individuals are an important source of funding for social services and public goods. This study aims at identifying important factors that determine when and how people donate using detailed information on the Norwegian deposit lottery (pantelotteri) in which people are able to donate deposits they would receive for recycling bottles and cans. For example, how did individuals respond to insecurity during Covid-19? Do news of natural disasters affect donations? How long-lasting are these effects?

Supervisor: Maximilian Todtenhaupt.

Tjenesten microdata.no gir tilgang til variabler på individnivå om befolkning, utdanning, sysselsetting, inntekt, formue, gjeld, skatt, trygd, barnevern, valg og boforhold. Jeg har ikke et bestemt spørsmål i tankene, men veileder gjerne oppgaver som bruker disse dataene. Studenter som ønsker å gjøre dette kan få tilgang til microdata.no gjennom NHH. Bakgrunn fra et kurs i økonometri er sterkt å anbefale.

Supervisor: Øyvind Thomassen.

Extreme weather events such as floods, heatwaves, droughts, and storms cause major economic losses to private and public sector alike. The latest IPCC report shows that the frequency, and to some extent the magnitude, of such events will continue to increase although there are exceptions. The probability of so-called ‘compound events’ – that two or more extreme events happen simultaneously or successively – will increase due to this ongoing trend.

Such events carry even more extreme economic losses and play a crucial role in evaluating climate risk, but they are not well constrained nor understood. In 2018, there was elevated risk for snow-driven flooding in central Norway, which was followed by one of the warmest and driest summers on record, which coincided with several climatically induced forest fires. Based on both historical data and climate predictions, the students will evaluate the probability and potential economic consequences of compound events today and in the future and provide insights and advice for the insurance industry. The industry partner for this thesis is Tryg.

Supervisor: Geir Drage Berentsen.

Prior research argues that the inheritance tax is an important instrument to reduce inequality. In Norway, the inheritance tax was abolished in 2014. How did this effect income and wealth inequality in various parts of Norway? The aim of this thesis is to investigate these questions using micro-level data from Statistics Norway (SSB).

Supervisor: Maximilian Todtenhaupt.

Government support to firms during the Covid-19 pandemic was comprehensive and supposed to quickly reach businesses. This may have lead to some firms exploiting government funds that were not eligible. For example, some companies may have been reconstructed to utilize the support schemes and then initiate bankruptcies in parts of companies. It may also be of interest to look at risk factors that arise in companies that receive payments from several support schemes. This study will contribute to an evaluation of how well the grant schemes have worked.

Supervisor: Maximilian Todtenhaupt.

The lock-down of Norway on March 12, 2020 meant that many businesses had problems paying taxes and fees. In order to alleviate the burdens and avoid bankruptcies, the government, with effect from 12 June 2020, issued a regulatory provision that allows for deferral of payment for most tax and duty claims. This has led to a halving of bankruptcies compared with 2019 and raises several interesting, empirical questions: Have schemes led to companies being kept alive that would normally have gone bankrupt? How can the tax administration predict bankruptcy among firms?

Supervisor: Maximilian Todtenhaupt.

I can provide data on equity mutual funds that can be used and extended with additional data to examine different research questions. Experience with programming in R/Stata/Python or similar is useful.

Supervisor: Andreas Ørpetveit.

Analyze a given investment project, either accepted or planned, in order to show its value creation by calculating the related net present value (or using a different profitability measure). This problem is thus a parallel to company valuation, however, the time horizon will typically be shorter and including option characteristics may be more relevant. Besides, strategic and financial issues will be more prominent than accounting issues in this thesis.

Supervisor: Øystein Gjerde.

In a series of influential studies, scholars have identified that companies benefit from conflict. Arms companies are involved in smuggling, diamond mining companies exploit the chaos to secure extraction rights and corrupt officials disclose top secret information. Every conflict is different and firms will find a way to profit from the chaos.

Possible questions are: do these findings still hold in recent times, from for e.g. 2005 to 2020? Are the perpetrators different? Can we link perpetrators through their board composition? How connected are the boards of companies that violate embargoes? How does corporate governance influence illegal activities? 

Starting point: DellaVigna, S. and La Ferrara, E., 2010. Detecting illegal arms trade. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2(4), pp. 26-57.

Supervisor: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman.

Supervisor: Aysil Emirmahmutoglu.

Supervisor: Trond M. Døskeland.

Supervisor: Trond M. Døskeland.

Analyze a given company or a given line of business exposed to price risk from commodities/services sold or bought. May also be combined with currency risk. What is the level of risk, how do we measure it, which instruments are available to deal with this risk and how successful is the risk-reducing strategy, using these instruments. Hedging strategies are based on a combination of risk-reduction and expected values, so both components may be included in the analyses.

Supervisor: Øystein Gjerde.

We have comprehensive data on micro-level commodity trades, vessel behaviors, satellite-based information, in addition to the commodity and freight market data.  By addressing practical challenges faced by shipping companies, theses can be developed based on hands-on projects in collabration with shipping companies, banks or insurance companies. The following aspects serve as broad examples:

Topic 1: Trade flow and freight rate forecasting

Topic 2: Investment horizon. How to balance asset lifespan, carbon neutral regulation and investment costs.

Topic 3: Carbon costs in transportation

Topic 4: ESG disclosure in shipping & offshore industry

Topic 5: Climate change and credit risk in shipping & offshore

Supervisor: Haiying Jia

Topic 1: Marine accident analysis w.r.t. attributes such as trade, location, or crew

Topic 2: Automated underwriting in marine insurance

Topic 3: Risk exposure vs. financial return

Supervisor: Haiying Jia

Using unique daily spatial data for vessel employment, analyze how regional freight rate changes are driven by supply and demand, and whether the specifications and operator of a ship matters for its attractiveness in the market.

Supervisor: Haiying Jia.

A tax strategy among investors is to recast a dividend payment as a swap payment in order to take advantage of favoured tax treatment given to swap agreements involving non-US persons in the US. US stock dividents paid to non-US persons are subject to the dividend tax, whereas “dividend equivalents” paid to non-US persons as part of a swap agreement are not subject to any US tax.

Since a 2009 Senate hearing identified the tax evasion nature of these transactions, there has been little research on the topic. These transactions are likely the origin from which cum fraud schemes have arisen. Since 2009 the US has had reforms in their dividend tax and in the legislation surrounding the claiming of these dividend equivalents. What is the impact of these reforms on stock lending of US stocks?

Supervisor: Floris Zoutman and Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman

A common tax planning strategy among investors is to sell their stocks the day before dividends are due, and buy them back on the ex-dividend day. This strategy, known as cum-cum trading, allows investors to avoid paying dividend taxes. The Norwegian tax authorities are considering to implement policies that make cum-cum trading less attractive in order to generate more dividend tax revenue.

Your task will be to see how cum-cum trading relates to taxation and other policy variables, using international stock market data. Questions that you could answer in this topic are: Do stock market experience excess trade around the dividend day? Does excess trade relate to the dividend tax rate? Do stock prices reflect the level of the dividend tax? Are policies aimed at combating cum-cum trading effective in other countries?

Cum-cum trading strategies have been detected in Europe. Are they present in the Asian and South-American market? Are these trades a global problem that contributes to rising inequality?

Supervisor: Floris Zoutman and Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman

It is well known that the price of necessities, especially food products in Norway is higher than in neighboring countries. An important determinant of the price of necessities consists in tariff barriers. Tariffs in Norway are among the highest in the developed world. Norway charges particularly high tariffs on meat and dairy products, but also substantial tariffs on fruit and vegetables. In neo-classical models of trade such tariffs generate a negative shock to consumer surplus that exceeds the gain in producer surplus. Moreover, in the recent context tariffs have become increasingly controversial because they contribute to already rising prices in supermarkets.

A recent paper by Shapiro (2021) also highlights the environmental impact of tariffs. On the one hand, Norwegian tariffs displace agricultural production from abroad to Norway. This is good for the environment if production in Norway is cleaner than abroad and vice versa. On the other hand, tariffs affect the relative price of clean (low emissions per unit of produced good) to dirty (high emissions) goods. Shapiro (2021) finds that tariffs, on average, increase the price of clean goods more than the price of dirty goods. That is, tariffs act as an implicit subsidy on pollution.

In this topic you can think of the following research questions:

1. What is the benefit of the current tariffs to the Norwegian agricultural sector and how do they compare to the cost incurred by consumers?
2. What is the environmental impact of Norwegian tariffs? Is Shapiro’s conclusion that tariffs, worldwide, harm the environment also valid for Norway’s tariffs? If so, how can Norway introduce greener tariffs?
3. Anything else relating to tariffs that comes to mind.

Literature

Joseph S Shapiro, The Environmental Bias of Trade Policy, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 136, Issue 2, May 2021, Pages 831–886, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjaa042

Supervisor

Floris Zoutman

Mainly, as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine energy prices across Europe have increased tremendously. The price of natural gas, which prior to the invasion ranged between 50-100 euro per MWh peaked to more than 300 euro per MWh in September of 2022. Prices of other forms of energy, particularly electricity, have seen a corresponding incline. At the same time the consumption of electricity has dropped significantly. Between August 2022 and January 2023 European demand for natural gas dropped by 19.3 percent. This decline challenges the traditional view that the demand for energy is inelastic. At the same time, there is confounding variation in the form of changes in weather which hinder the possibility to estimate the causal relationship between the price of energy and the demand of energy.

In this thesis you will aim to estimate the price elasticity of energy using variation in energy policy. While all European countries faced similar increases in the price of energy, the policy response between countries differed substantially. In some countries, government offered little in the form of direct subsidies on energy. Other countries, like Norway, offered generous subsidies effectively shielding consumers from most of the price increase. If the demand for energy is elastic, we should see that higher subsidies result in more energy consumption. On the other hand, of the demand for energy is inelastic there will be no relation between the two variables.

Data

Data on energy policies and energy/electricity consumption for several European countries.

Methods

Regression modes

Supervisor

Floris Zoutman

Recently there are many calls to create a practice of replicating empirical research. In this topic students can choose one of more than 4000 published papers with data packages and attempt to replicate the tables and figures in the paper. While replicating a paper, the students would learn a given method of analysis. The individual contribution of students would be to implement an additional analysis such as machine learning with the purpose of corroborating the results or answering an additional question on the base of the data.

Website: https://replication.uni-goettingen.de/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Supervisor: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman.

The risk of accepting Airbnb guests is that they might run up all of your utilities. Are renters sensitive to this concern? Estimate the relationship between listings and electricity prices.

Scrape the Data from http://insideairbnb.com/get-the-data/ and determine whether Airbnb listings in the last 2 years respond to electricity prices.

Supervisor: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman.

Since 2015 European banks must disclose their operations in tax havens. These operations involve activities like complicated tax arbitrage strategies. While technically legal, tax arbitrage may be morally questionable and sometimes courts make rulings turning some tax arbitrage strategies illegal. How does the involvement of banks in tax havens correlate to their corporate governance? What is the relationship between a bank’s ethical credo and the ethicality of the bank’s behavior?

Starting point: https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/opening-the-vaults-the-use-of-tax-havens-by-europes-biggest-banks-620234/.

Supervisor: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman.

A recent article identified a set of 30 last names of individuals involved in mafia activities in Italy. Are these names mentioned in the Panama papers, Pandora papers or other leaks? What are the activities of the involved firms? Are these mentions consistent with money laundering.

Supervisor: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman.

Foreign individual and institutional investors are a fundamental component of global capital markets. On the one side, attracting foreign portfolio equity investments is a key policy objective for many countries around the world given the related benefits. On the other side, they pose serious challenges from a tax collection perspective. Traditionally, countries around the world rely on withholding tax to ensure the proper collection of taxes on foreign investors. Yet, existing withholding tax systems are far from being ideal and reforming them is high on the political agenda in Norway and within the European Union. Recently Finland launched a new innovative system called TRACE to make the collection of such taxes easier. Norway has also a similar system since few years now. 

The master thesis should provide an overview of the two systems, compare them and analyses whether the introduction of such systems increased investment in those countries and/or affected dividend payment policy of domestic companies.

Supervisor: Elisa Casi-Eberhard.

Charitable donations by individuals are an important source of funding for social services and public goods. This study aims at identifying important factors that determine when and how people donate using detailed information on the Norwegian deposit lottery (pantelotteri) in which people are able to donate deposits they would receive for recycling bottles and cans. For example, how did individuals respond to insecurity during Covid-19? Do news of natural disasters affect donations? How long-lasting are these effects?

Supervisor: Maximilian Todtenhaupt.

In 2021, Palau launched its digital residency program, which offers foreigners a digital identity to access to all services within Palau’s emerging digital economy. However, Palau is not the first country to offer such a program. In 2014, Estonia was the first country to establish a digital residency program. It primarily targeted businesses that could start a EU based company and run it from anywhere, fully online.

For example, a foreign entrepreneur would be able to use his/her digital signature to conclude contracts throughout the European Union entirely remotely. So far, it has been a success with more than 50,000 applications as of 2019. Yet, anecdotal evidence suggests that the Estonian digital residency program has also been vulnerable to money laundering risks. What is the economic effect of such programs? Do they improve the business environment of a country or do they offer a high-tech route for suspect funds?

Supervisor: Elisa Casi and Mohammed Mardan.

Prior research argues that the inheritance tax is an important instrument to reduce inequality. In Norway, the inheritance tax was abolished in 2014. How did this effect income and wealth inequality in various parts of Norway? The aim of this thesis is to investigate these questions using micro-level data from Statistics Norway (SSB).

Supervisor: Maximilian Todtenhaupt.

Government support to firms during the Covid-19 pandemic was comprehensive and supposed to quickly reach businesses. This may have lead to some firms exploiting government funds that were not eligible. For example, some companies may have been reconstructed to utilize the support schemes and then initiate bankruptcies in parts of companies. It may also be of interest to look at risk factors that arise in companies that receive payments from several support schemes. This study will contribute to an evaluation of how well the grant schemes have worked.

Supervisor: Maximilian Todtenhaupt.

The lock-down of Norway on March 12, 2020 meant that many businesses had problems paying taxes and fees. In order to alleviate the burdens and avoid bankruptcies, the government, with effect from 12 June 2020, issued a regulatory provision that allows for deferral of payment for most tax and duty claims. This has led to a halving of bankruptcies compared with 2019 and raises several interesting, empirical questions: Have schemes led to companies being kept alive that would normally have gone bankrupt? How can the tax administration predict bankruptcy among firms?

Supervisor: Maximilian Todtenhaupt.

A common tax planning strategy among investors is to sell their stocks the day before dividends are due, and buy them back on the ex-dividend day. This strategy, known as cum-cum trading, allows investors to avoid paying dividend taxes. The Norwegian tax authorities are considering to implement policies that make cum-cum trading less attractive in order to generate more dividend tax revenue.

Your task will be to see how cum-cum trading relates to taxation and other policy variables, using international stock market data. Questions that you could answer in this topic are: Do stock market experience excess trade around the dividend day? Does excess trade relate to the dividend tax rate? Do stock prices reflect the level of the dividend tax? Are policies aimed at combating cum-cum trading effective in other countries?

Cum-cum trading strategies have been detected in Europe. Are they present in the Asian and South-American market? Are these trades a global problem that contributes to rising inequality?

Supervisor: Floris Zoutman and Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman

A tax strategy among investors is to recast a dividend payment as a swap payment in order to take advantage of favoured tax treatment given to swap agreements involving non-US persons in the US. US stock dividents paid to non-US persons are subject to the dividend tax, whereas “dividend equivalents” paid to non-US persons as part of a swap agreement are not subject to any US tax.

Since a 2009 Senate hearing identified the tax evasion nature of these transactions, there has been little research on the topic. These transactions are likely the origin from which cum fraud schemes have arisen. Since 2009 the US has had reforms in their dividend tax and in the legislation surrounding the claiming of these dividend equivalents. What is the impact of these reforms on stock lending of US stocks?

Supervisor: Floris Zoutman and Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman

Inventors are an important source of innovation for any country. At the same time they are highly mobile and respond to tax incentives. Furthermore, the intellectual property they create (e.g. patents) can be used shift income to tax havens. How many inventors are involved in such tax avoidance behavior? This project will assess the importance of inventors in tax havens by combining data on international inventors with the Panama papers which have recently become available.

Supervisor: Maximilian Todtenhaupt.

In political and institutional economy we think of countries as having extractive and inclusive institutions. Institutions are loosely defined as informal norms of behaviour. In an influential (but controversial) paper by Acemoglu et al. (2001) the type of institutions are shown to impact economic development. However, it is unclear whether what aspect of these informal norms have influenced countries like the Netherlands, Ireland and Bermuda to become tax havens?

Dharmapala and Hines (2009) have found that governance is an important factor that separates tax havens from non-tax havens. Better-governed small countries are more likely to be successful tax havens than badly governed small countries. Governance and institutions are closely related, but the link is not explored in this article.

In addition, the list of tax havens has expanded since 2009 and now we have continuous measures of secrecy and tax haven status, which can give better identification in re-examining the question: What makes a tax haven?

Starting point: Dharmapala, D. and Hines Jr, J.R., 2009. Which countries become tax havens?. Journal of Public Economics, 93(9-10), pp.1058-1068.

Supervisor: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman.

The wealth tax is one of the most controversial aspects of the Norwegian tax system. Detractors believe that the wealth tax hurts economic growth by disincentivizing entrepreneurial activity and risk taking, and taking away a source of liquidity for business owners. Proponents argue that the wealth tax is a great instrument to reduce inequality.

In this project you will use data on Norwegian tax payers to evaluate the arguments of the detractors. Specifically, the goal is to understand i.) whether the arguments are valid empirically, ii.) how large the concerns are quantitatively. Specific research questions could be i.) does the wealth tax discourage individuals/business owners from taking risk, ii.) does the wealth tax reduce liquidity for small businesses, iii.) does the wealth tax reduce innovation or iv). does the wealth tax discourage savings. The answer of each of these four questions is of great practical relevance to policy makers that have to make a trade-off between the efficiency cost and the equity gain associated with the wealth tax.

Data: Individual tax return data

Literature:

• Berzins, Janis, Øyvind Bøhren and Bodan Stacesu (2019). Illiquid Shareholders and real firm effects: the personal wealth tax and financial constraints. Working Paper BI.
• Akcigit, U., Grigsby, J., Nicholas, T., & Stantcheva, S. (2018). Taxation and Innovation in the 20th Century. NBER Working Paper.

Supervisor: Floris Zoutman

There is very little systematic evidence on the gender gap in crime. In particular, it is difficult to quantify it for financial white collar crime, as they do not find their way into police statistics and as there is little female presence on the top levels of companies.

In this project, we can use textual analysis tools to collect data from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on insider trading and other frauds. We can match the name of the defendant to a gender, and quantify what is the difference between males and females.

Then, we can correlate the gap, as well as the fraud itself, to past financial statements of involved companies in terms of gender representation in the board of the company and other indicators of company culture. Finally, we can compare the gap to other measures of female participation in the boardroom and determine whether white collar females seem more or less likely to commit crimes than white collar males. We can provide a partial answer to the question: Are companies going to become more responsible (do less criminal rule-breaking) if there are more females on the board?

Methods: Textual analysis, web crawling, R

Supervisor: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman.

The Oil for Food Program (OFFP) was a relief effort orchestrated by the United Nations to help the people of Iraq after the Gulf War. It lasted from 1995 to 2003. Leaks from classified reports reveal that there has been rampant corruption, from the bank that handled the Iraq escrow account, to the trucking company that was supposed to handle the logistics of food transport. Even the then UN General Secretary Kofi Annan has been implicated in this corruption scandal. By looking at important events that influence the survival of the OFFP and stock prices of companies bidding for contracts, by virtue of insider trading, we can find an indirect proof for corruption.

The methodology for this thesis is the same as in DellaVigna, S. and La Ferrara, E., 2010. Detecting illegal arms trade. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2(4), pp.26-57.

Supervisor: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman.

During the COVID-19 pandemic most countries imposed Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) or lockdown measures in an effort to halt the spread of the disease. In a case study focusing on the Scandinavian countries we show that in Scandinavia the NPIs introduced by Norway and Denmark were extraordinarily effective in reducing the pressure on the health care system and mortality (Juranek and Zoutman 2020). In this thesis we want you to pick apart the mechanisms. Which NPIs are most effective in reducing the spread of the disease? When should countries introduce NPIs (traditional epidemiology suggests that early NPIs will be much more effective than the same NPIs introduced at later stages)? What is the relationship between mobility on the one hand, and the spread of COVID-19 on the other hand? All of these questions remain mostly unanswered and are of extreme importance to policy makers trying to stop a second (or third) COVID-19 wave, or trying to fight a new infectious disease in the future.

Data: the EU has created a database which contains an overview of all NPIs passed in EEA countries. The database also contains records on hospitalizations, which for many reasons is the most valuable measure in tracking the spread of the disease. Google has publicly available data on mobility. For Scandinavian countries we can also track data at the regional level.

Methods: the methods depend on the background and training of the student undertaking the thesis. Many meaningful relationship can be estimated through linear regression. However, it is also possible to use more advanced methods such as machine learning or epidemiological models.

Reference: Juranek, Steffen and Floris Zoutman (2020). “The Effect of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions on the Demand for Health Care and Mortality: Evidence on COVID-19 in Scandinavia” SSRN Working Paper.

Supervisor: Floris Zoutman

All countries in developed countries have introduced Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) such as social distancing, handwashing, mask wearing and school closures, in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19. The charge has up to now been lead almost exclusively by epidemiologists. In most countries economists are not included in the team of experts that advice the government on these decisions. That’s a pity, because economics, and especially, old-fashioned cost-benefit analysis has a lot to offer under these conditions. Roughly speaking NPIs all have their economic costs and benefits (i.e. their ability to halt the spread of COVID-19). From a cost-benefit standpoint it is possible to sort NPIs from “cheap” (high benefits, low costs) to “expensive” (low costs, high benefits). In case of a pandemic the objective of the government should be to keep the pandemic suppressed at the lowest possible cost. This means that we should pass NPIs in order from cheap to expensive. In particular, the most expensive measures should only be introduced in case cheaper methods do not suffice.

To give a practical example, handwashing is cheap in the sense that it has very little economic costs and is most likely quite effective at stopping the spread of COVID-19. Social distancing is relatively more costly as it comes with high economic costs (think for instance about spacing people out in classrooms, public transport etc.), and is probably not much more effective than handwashing. This does not imply that we should not practice social distancing, but it does imply that handwashing comes “first”.

In this thesis, you will do two things. First, you explain in more detail the principles of cost-benefit analysis applied to the COVID-19 pandemic. Second, you provide your best guestimates of the costs and benefits of NPIs passed in Norway using, for instance, academic literature, media sources and interviews with experts. Third, you apply your cost-benefit analysis with the guestimates to provide clear policy advice to Norwegian policy makers on which measures should come first.

Methods: cost-benefit analysis, literature review, interviews with experts

Supervisor: Floris Zoutman

Juranek et al (2020) study the labor market in the Nordic countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that the pandemic has had disastrous consequences in terms of both unemployed and furloughed workers in all four countries. Sweden, comparatively does the best, and Norway is at the bottom (at least in the short run). Part of the difference in labor market outcomes is driven by differences in lockdown measures, which Sweden (in)famously abstained from, but there are also differences in labor market policies. Moreover, the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic itself may have a direct effect on labor markets. In this project, you will try to unpack the mechanisms focusing on data from the Nordic countries. As a first pass, you will extend the data of Juranek et al (2020) and replicate their analysis over a longer time frame. Afterwards, you will build a statistical model that disentangles the mechanisms between COVID-19 and the labor market using causal diagrams, regression analysis and/or machine learning tools. The results will be helpful in understanding how the pandemic affected labor markets, and guide policy makers in passing measures that fight the pandemic but minimize the damage to the labor market. Data: Labor market data from the Nordic countries available from the various statistical agencies, data on mobility available from Google and data on the spread of the pandemic, available from health institutes. Methods: Linear Regression, causal diagrams, machine learnings (the choice of methods can be adjusted based on the student’s background).

References: Juranek, Steffen, Jörg Paetzold, Hannes Winner and Floris Zoutman (2020) “Labor Market Effects of COVID-19 in Sweden and its Neighbors: Evidence from Novel Administrative Data” SSRN Working Paper

Supervisor: Floris Zoutman

Does it matter for teaching practice whether the school is new, old, well maintained, run down, a permanent building or temporary modules ("barracks")?

Supervisor: Arnt-Ove Hopland

ESA’s Earth Online portal offers European research institutes direct and simple access to Earth Observation data coming from satellite missions operated directly by the European Space Agency and Third Party Missions. These data can be combined with ghgsat estimates to answer the following question: "How much carbon dioxide equivalent was released during the mining/extraction of a particular mine/oil & gas field?"

Supervisor: Giacomo Benini.

The risk of accepting Airbnb guests is that they might run up all of your utilities. Are renters sensitive to this concern? Estimate the relationship between listings and electricity prices.

Scrape the Data from http://insideairbnb.com/get-the-data/ and determine whether Airbnb listings in the last 2 years respond to electricity prices.

Supervisor: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman.

Since 2015 European banks must disclose their operations in tax havens. These operations involve activities like complicated tax arbitrage strategies. While technically legal, tax arbitrage may be morally questionable and sometimes courts make rulings turning some tax arbitrage strategies illegal. How does the involvement of banks in tax havens correlate to their corporate governance? What is the relationship between a bank’s ethical credo and the ethicality of the bank’s behavior?

Starting point: https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/opening-the-vaults-the-use-of-tax-havens-by-europes-biggest-banks-620234/.

Supervisor: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman.

The value of a good reputation has changed in recent years. A simple internet search can show that no one can maintain a good reputation. This is especially relevant in jobs that are close to the public eye. Consider Johnny Depp who lost on a considerable income after he was dropped by movie studios during his divorce proceedings. The research question is: How much of the gender pay gap of film stars is due to reputation?

Scrape data from https://www.qscores.com/performer, and determine what is the price of a good reputation.

Supervisor: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman.

A recent article identified a set of 30 last names of individuals involved in mafia activities in Italy. Are these names mentioned in the Panama papers, Pandora papers or other leaks? What are the activities of the involved firms? Are these mentions consistent with money laundering.

Supervisor: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman.

Networks are important in shaping behavior in many environments. For example, economic production and supply chains are organized as networks, new technologies diffuse in the economy through research and development collaboration networks. Social networks pervade our social and economic lives. They play a central role in the transmission of information about job opportunities and are critical to the trade of many goods and services. The presence of networks makes it important to understand which network structures can emerge and how networks impact behavior.

We can discuss your specific interests concerning with analysis of network models or/and analysis of real life networks. For example, a possible thesis topic can be online networks, networks in science and education (e.g. collaboration, co-authorship networks, citation networks), financial networks (e.g. influence of networks on financial decisions), trade networks, networks in labor markets.

Supervisor: Roman Kozlov.

What’s the cost-benefit for using an integrated climate and environment surveillance on seafood production? The student will assess the impact and values associated with using a detailed monitoring tool called Clarify, which currently is employed by many seafood producers. The student will be given access to unpublished data afforded by Clarify that can be directly compared to other chains of the seafood production, including feeding, fish welfare, loss to sickness and slaughter. Additional climate data can also be made available to the student depending on emerging needs. This Master opens for a relevant exploration of how monitoring can strengthen seafood sustainability and resilience to the changing climate conditions that remain the key premise for seafood production. The industry partner for this thesis is Clarify.

Supervisor: Geir Drage Berentsen.

In this thesis, the students will use historical weather data to investigate the potential of Norwegian wind power in a scenario where all the current offshore locations suggested by the NVE are in full production. Alternative locations derived from optimizing production output are available and can be compared to the sites suggested by NVE. A secondary goal is to use the results to investigate the impact on the European energy market. The industry partner for this thesis is Statkraft.

Supervisor: Geir Drage Berentsen.

Extreme weather events such as floods, heatwaves, droughts, and storms cause major economic losses to private and public sector alike. The latest IPCC report shows that the frequency, and to some extent the magnitude, of such events will continue to increase although there are exceptions. The probability of so-called ‘compound events’ – that two or more extreme events happen simultaneously or successively – will increase due to this ongoing trend.

Such events carry even more extreme economic losses and play a crucial role in evaluating climate risk, but they are not well constrained nor understood. In 2018, there was elevated risk for snow-driven flooding in central Norway, which was followed by one of the warmest and driest summers on record, which coincided with several climatically induced forest fires. Based on both historical data and climate predictions, the students will evaluate the probability and potential economic consequences of compound events today and in the future and provide insights and advice for the insurance industry. The industry partner for this thesis is Tryg.

Supervisor: Geir Drage Berentsen.

Wind conditions, sea currents, -temperature and -salinity are all important factors when considering new locations for ocean-based aquaculture facilities. Moreover, locations that are considered optimal today may not be suitable locations in the future due to climate change. In this thesis, the students will investigate the current optimal placements of aquaculture based on detailed historical data. By considering state of the art climate predictions, it can be investigated how these placements will change on different time horizons. The students should also discuss placement conflicts with fisheries and coastal shipping routes. The industry partner for this thesis is Clarify.

Supervisor: Geir Drage Berentsen.

Many social and economic activities are heavily affected by weather variables such as temperatures and precipitation. In this master thesis, the students will explore the relationship between weather variables and economic decisions made by Norwegian households and/or businesses. In addition, the students will explore how climate change, through its effect on temperatures and precipitation, will affect these economic decisions into the future.

Examples of relationships to explore are the effects of heatwaves on human mortality rates, extreme precipitation on agricultural production, or drought on hydropower production. The exploration can be either on the macro or micro level and can be in the form of either a statistical analysis or modelling exercise. For the prediction exercise, the students will have access to novel climate forecasts from the Climate Futures project. An interesting question to explore is how access to improved seasonal weather forecasts can mitigate the harmful economic impacts of climate change.

Supervisor: Geir Drage Berentsen.

Public procurement involves a large amount of money and involves a wide range of sectors. In Norway public procurement was almost 600 million NOK in the 2019 statistics and the public bought everything: from toilet paper and office supplies to new roads, high-tech hospital supplies and defense material. Data on official tenders (possibilities for contracting with the public sector) are announced on doffin.no and there is a special complaint committee dealing with disputes related to public contracts. This offers a rich amount of data to explore topics within public procurement.

For instance, sometimes a public entity can pretend to be looking for a contractor in a competitive manner, however the phrasing of the contract allows the entity to choose preferentially a predetermined contractor. This step can be part of a larger corruption kick-back scheme that is well-hidden beneath a veil of legality. There could also be differences in how public procurement in various dimensions (geographical, type of public entity, etc.). This topic allows students to investigate procurement tenders and complaints on decisions made to determine whether there is evidence of specific patterns or preferential treatment.

Necessary skills: web scraping, textual analysis, statistical/econometric analysis

Supervisors: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman and Malin Arve.

Using machine learning techniques to study the evolvement of the facilities management literature.

Supervisor: Arnt Ove Hopland.

Using machine learning techniques to study the evolvement of the public choice literature.

Supervisor: Arnt Ove Hopland.

Using machine learning techniques to study the evolvement of the operations research literature.

Supervisor: Arnt Ove Hopland.

Prior research argues that the inheritance tax is an important instrument to reduce inequality. In Norway, the inheritance tax was abolished in 2014. How did this effect income and wealth inequality in various parts of Norway? The aim of this thesis is to investigate these questions using micro-level data from Statistics Norway (SSB).

Supervisor: Maximilian Todtenhaupt.

In a series of influential studies, scholars have identified that companies benefit from conflict. Arms companies are involved in smuggling, diamond mining companies exploit the chaos to secure extraction rights and corrupt officials disclose top secret information. Every conflict is different and firms will find a way to profit from the chaos.

Possible questions are: do these findings still hold in recent times, from for e.g. 2005 to 2020? Are the perpetrators different? Can we link perpetrators through their board composition? How connected are the boards of companies that violate embargoes? How does corporate governance influence illegal activities? 

Starting point: DellaVigna, S. and La Ferrara, E., 2010. Detecting illegal arms trade. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2(4), pp. 26-57.

Supervisor: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman.

Using large amounts of global hindcasting data for weather variables, to investigate the spatial and temporal changes in the probability distributions for certain key drivers (e.g. wave height, wind speed) for chosen main trade routes in ocean transportation. The objective is to provide further insight in, for instance, seasonal and spatial patterns. Also to develop an algorithm that can match a vessel track in space and time with interpolated weather variables observable only at certain spatial nodes.

Supervisor: Professor Roar Ådland

Using empirical hindcast and forecast data for precipitation in selected South American ports, to assess and predict the impact of rain events and intensity on the loading of weather sensitive cargoes such as paper, grain etc.

Work in co-operation with shipping companies Western Bulk and/or G2Ocean.

Supervisor: Professor Roar Ådland

There is very little systematic evidence on the gender gap in crime. In particular, it is difficult to quantify it for financial white collar crime, as they do not find their way into police statistics and as there is little female presence on the top levels of companies.

In this project, we can use textual analysis tools to collect data from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on insider trading and other frauds. We can match the name of the defendant to a gender, and quantify what is the difference between males and females.

Then, we can correlate the gap, as well as the fraud itself, to past financial statements of involved companies in terms of gender representation in the board of the company and other indicators of company culture. Finally, we can compare the gap to other measures of female participation in the boardroom and determine whether white collar females seem more or less likely to commit crimes than white collar males. We can provide a partial answer to the question: Are companies going to become more responsible (do less criminal rule-breaking) if there are more females on the board?

Methods: Textual analysis, web crawling, R

Supervisor: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman.

It is well known that witness accounts on crime are often unreliable. The effects of stress or poor light on the victim can create a skewed perception of how the perpetrator looked. This, coupled with an unconscious discriminatory bias, leads to the victim reporting that the perpetrator was unknown or from the black racial minority. Often the witness report is based on an estimate – e.g. “ the perpetrator looked black, around 25 years”.

Comparing actual arrests to reports, we can try to put a number on the amount of witness error. By training a machine learning model on a subsample, we can try to predict the gender, race and age of unobserved criminals. This can impact the computation of statistics on black/white, male/female and young/old crime gaps. What if blacks are actually responsible for a very small fraction of crimes? What if females are responsible for more crimes? This could lead us to rethink current racial profiling strategies in crime detection.

Data: National Incident Based Reporting System, US

Starting point: Imbens, G.W. and Lemieux, T., 2008. Regression discontinuity designs: A guide to practice. Journal of econometrics, 142(2), pp.615-635.
Fryer Jr, R.G., 2016. An empirical analysis of racial differences in police use of force (No. w22399). National Bureau of Economic Research

Supervisor: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman.

A large portion of empirical research within economics and finance is based on linear models, of which the linear regression is by far the most prominent. Is this because we live in a linear world, or at least an approximately linear world, or is it the case that we implicitly close our eyes to important features i our data by not considering nonlinear methods on equal footing as traditional ones?

Questions like this may take your master project in several directions, such as (listed from least to most statistical/mathematical maturity recommended to complete the project, all of them benefit from programming skills):

1. To what degree is linear regression the main vehicle for measuring marginal effects of explanatory variables X to a response variable Y within economic research (within a certain field/ in Norway/ at NHH or otherwise suitably limited)? Why do researchers choose this method (convenience/interpretability of coefficients/easy presentation/theoretical foundations/...)?  Then, figure out to which degree such concerns can be addressed by a corresponding nonlinear model. A nice touch would be to re-do a recent linear study nonlinearly and see if there indeed are effects that were missed.

2. A bit more technical version of the point above is to write a thesis that revolves around the systematical development of a tool in your programming language of choice (such as R or Python) that implements as many needs as possible of the linearly oriented researcher in a nonlinear framework, with pre-work consisting of providing a theoretical foundation, and as post-work perhaps testing your «product» by trying to «sell it» to an experienced researcher.

3. Financial time series are typically nonlinear in the sense that the correlation coefficient does not, in general, give good descriptions of dependencies across time and space. This has naturally lead to the development of nonlinear methods to model financial processes. For example, the classical theory for portfolio allocation that Harry Markowitz introduced in the 1950s balances expected return (as measured by means) and risk (as measured by standard deviations and correlations) in order to provide the optimal distribution of wealth across different assets.

The Markowitz portfolio theory is very simple and easy to implement. But, it explicitly assumes that dependence between assets is linear, so the decades following its introduction have seen many attempts to improve the Markowitz method by modelling dependencies nonlinearly. Many authors note, however, that it is actually quite hard to attain higher returns using modern methods compared to the classical approach. This project may contain a survey of modern portfolio selection methods (which will require the ability to read fairly technical research papers), and a discussion part where we try to answer the question whether beating the classical approach indeed is «hard», and if so, why?

Supervisor: Håkon Otneim.

Some highlights of the company:

• Developer of equipment to the fish farming industry
• Our mission is to provide equipment to protect fish from lice infection
• Our products are for example protection shields, upwelling system, filtration of surface water and monitoring environmental conditions by the use of sensors
• We are constantly seeking new developments to improve our solutions
• We are also in a progress of making new partners to have the option to supply complementary products which will supplement our existing products
• Main office is located in Nordfjordeid
• Contact person: Arild Heggland

Some aspects that could be the foundation of a master thesis:

• Market knowledge of Fjord Miljø and our products
• Market rating of Fjord Miljø
• How to improve knowledge and rating?
• Estimate willingness to pay for protection against lice infection
• Valuation of our products
• How do fish farmers consider new products to be useful in the future, these products will be specified later
• Where do fish farmers expect the industry to move on, landbased, closed containers in sea, continue as their producing today?
• Other relevant topics.

Supervisor: Stein Ivar Steinshamn.

This study complements the many that have asked whether ESG (environment, sustainability and governance) is associated with higher or lower return on investment: Finance also creates real assets. Is there evidence, in our time, that preferences or policies, regulation, raises resource flows and asset creation (builds windmills, for instance).

Supervisor: Gunnar S. Eskeland.

Contact Eskeland for Study design, as many approaches are on the table. One is the role of taxes (incl the new 'grunnrenteskatt'), another is new concessions and the role and shape of auctions, including contracts of difference; a third is offshore installations and how they are placed in terms of access to markets, etc.

Supervisor: Gunnar S. Eskeland.

NHH works with technically oriented partners (industry, ntnu, ife) on scenarios for the transition to a low-carbon economy. This thesis will combine such scenarios for the transition with perspectives from political economy (as with: who pays, and industry interests, and rich vs poor) and social acceptance.

Supervisor: Gunnar S. Eskeland.

This topic is in collaboration with ENOVA.

Norway has pledged to reach almost net zero emissions by 2050. The transport sector is responsible for almost one-third of the emissions in Norway, and the use of passenger cars alone is responsible for almost 10%. Therefore, to reach net zero, it is vital to de-carbonize the Norwegian car fleet. A key strategy to reduce emissions from the transport sector is to induce households to replace their fossil fuel cars with electric vehicles. Although most of the new cars sold in Norway are electric, the national fleet of cars still contains 'only' electric vehicles 20%. Will all cars in the future eventually be electric? Or are there barriers preventing the switch to electric vehicles?

In this topic, students will explore the sources of emissions from the Norwegian car fleet and how these emissions can be reduced. The thesis will focus on two main issues:

1. Emissions from the car fleet in Norway: Emissions from the transport sector have been steadily falling. But the car fleet is projected to increase in the coming years, and the share of transport with car is also increasing.

a) What are the drivers of emissions? For example, number of miles driven per car, age of the cars, geographical distribution, etc.

b) How will these emissions evolve over time?

2. Switching from fossil fuel cars to electric vehicles: Purchasing and driving electric vehicles have been heavily subsidized by the government. But people are still driving fossil fuel cars.

a) What are the barriers to replacing your fossil fuel car with an electric vehicle? For example, economic, behavioral, social, etc.

b) How can we induce households to make the switch to electric?

This topic can be approached from many different angles and is suitable for a wide range of empirical methods.

Supervisor: Isabel Hovdahl.

An analysis of electrical vehicles in  Norway where reduced emissions are measured against  reduced tax revenue.

Supervisor: Stein Ivar Steinshamn.

• What branding effect will the use of green/emission-free logistics chains have for the fish farming industry?
• What is the willingness to pay on the part of cargo owners for the use of low- and zero-emission vessels in their logistics operations?
• Economic valuation of Maritime Cleantech as a cluster organisation.
• Hydrogen and hydrogen-based fuels - how big a role can the production and distribution of these play for Norwegian value creation in 2050?
• Joint Norwegian investment for the maritime industry: how to position ourselves for increased exports of green technology? (Strategic/Marketing)
• Analysis of the market for green maritime technology in Southern Europe (can be built on research done by Innovation Norway in France, Spain and Italy)
• Size, scope and framework of incentive schemes for contracts for difference.
• Are end consumers willing to pay for green (maritime) transport? If so, how much?
• Profitability analyzes and CO2 reduction for conversion of existing vessels vs. new construction.
• Life cycle analyzes for ships - case speedboats and/or cargo ships - Lifetime of vessels - co2 emissions - conversion or measures that can reduce emissions during the ship's lifetime.
• Return scheme/ circular economy model for ships.
• Is there an update of the policy apparatus to support wider and more retrofit solutions for ships, to make them more energy efficient?

Supervisor: Stein Ivar Steinshamn.

• Shipping aims to halve its emissions by 2050. How should a shipping company approach this goal in terms of investment and redevelopment programmes? (Shipping company)
• How to market/sell green fuels and technologies that have not yet been demonstrated in the market? For example hydrogen, fuel cells etc. (fuel producers, FC producers and the like.)
• Strategy for marketing hydrogen/ammonia as a safe and secure green fuel (producers).
• Green innovation: How to change from traditional offshore to deliveries in new value chains (supplier industry, shipyards, shipping companies).
• Efficient/appropriate incentive/public/industrial structure for the production and supply of new energy carriers from wind farms and other offshore locations.

Supervisor: Stein Ivar Steinshamn.

The objective is to compare various ways Norway can fulfill the Paris-agreement with respect to consequences for the Norwegian economy and for global emissions among other things.

Supervisor: Stein Ivar Steinshamn.

ESA’s Earth Online portal offers European research institutes direct and simple access to Earth Observation data coming from satellite missions operated directly by the European Space Agency and Third Party Missions. These data can be combined with ghgsat estimates to answer the following question: "How much carbon dioxide equivalent was released during the mining/extraction of a particular mine/oil & gas field?"

Supervisor: Giacomo Benini.

The risk of accepting Airbnb guests is that they might run up all of your utilities. Are renters sensitive to this concern? Estimate the relationship between listings and electricity prices.

Scrape the Data from http://insideairbnb.com/get-the-data/ and determine whether Airbnb listings in the last 2 years respond to electricity prices.

Supervisor: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman.

Supervisor: Gunnar S. Eskeland.

Supervisor: Gunnar S. Eskeland.

Supervisor: Gunnar S. Eskeland.

Supervisor: Gunnar S. Eskeland.

A study of the efficiency and suitability of batteries in order to solve the intermittency problem associated with new renewable energy such as solar and wind power.

Supervisor: Stein Ivar Steinshamn.

Supervisor: Gunnar S. Eskeland.

Supervisor: Gunnar S. Eskeland.

Supervisor: Gunnar S. Eskeland.

During the last years, governments around the world have implemented different policies to promote investments in renewable production capacity. One of the main instruments is a policy known as guarantees of origin. These guarantees operate as a guarantee for final consumers that the electricity they consume comes from renewable energy sources.

An important characteristic of the guarantees is that the producers are free to sell the electricity and guarantees separately. What we are observing is that while electricity from Norwegian hydropower is largely sold to consumers in Norway, the guarantees from Norwegian hydropower is sold to consumers in Germany and the Netherlands. Despite the growing importance of this policy, there are few studies of the impacts of guarantees of origin on renewable production capacity.

In this master thesis, the students will investigate the effect of this policy instrument on renewable electricity capacity in Europe. What has Norway’s role been in promoting renewable energy capacity through guarantees of origin? What has the interaction been between guarantees of origin and other incentives to boost investments in renewable production capacity? And what are the implications of the de-coupling of the sale of the electricity with the sale of the guarantees?

This topic of research is suitable for many different types of methods, depending on the interests and skills of the students. The thesis can be based on either a statistical analysis, case study or modelling exercise.

Supervisor: Isabel Hovdahl and Mario Blázquez.

What’s the cost-benefit for using an integrated climate and environment surveillance on seafood production? The student will assess the impact and values associated with using a detailed monitoring tool called Clarify, which currently is employed by many seafood producers. The student will be given access to unpublished data afforded by Clarify that can be directly compared to other chains of the seafood production, including feeding, fish welfare, loss to sickness and slaughter. Additional climate data can also be made available to the student depending on emerging needs. This Master opens for a relevant exploration of how monitoring can strengthen seafood sustainability and resilience to the changing climate conditions that remain the key premise for seafood production. The industry partner for this thesis is Clarify.

Supervisor: Geir Drage Berentsen.

In this thesis, the students will use historical weather data to investigate the potential of Norwegian wind power in a scenario where all the current offshore locations suggested by the NVE are in full production. Alternative locations derived from optimizing production output are available and can be compared to the sites suggested by NVE. A secondary goal is to use the results to investigate the impact on the European energy market. The industry partner for this thesis is Statkraft.

Supervisor: Geir Drage Berentsen.

Extreme weather events such as floods, heatwaves, droughts, and storms cause major economic losses to private and public sector alike. The latest IPCC report shows that the frequency, and to some extent the magnitude, of such events will continue to increase although there are exceptions. The probability of so-called ‘compound events’ – that two or more extreme events happen simultaneously or successively – will increase due to this ongoing trend.

Such events carry even more extreme economic losses and play a crucial role in evaluating climate risk, but they are not well constrained nor understood. In 2018, there was elevated risk for snow-driven flooding in central Norway, which was followed by one of the warmest and driest summers on record, which coincided with several climatically induced forest fires. Based on both historical data and climate predictions, the students will evaluate the probability and potential economic consequences of compound events today and in the future and provide insights and advice for the insurance industry. The industry partner for this thesis is Tryg.

Supervisor: Geir Drage Berentsen.

Wind conditions, sea currents, -temperature and -salinity are all important factors when considering new locations for ocean-based aquaculture facilities. Moreover, locations that are considered optimal today may not be suitable locations in the future due to climate change. In this thesis, the students will investigate the current optimal placements of aquaculture based on detailed historical data. By considering state of the art climate predictions, it can be investigated how these placements will change on different time horizons. The students should also discuss placement conflicts with fisheries and coastal shipping routes. The industry partner for this thesis is Clarify.

Supervisor: Geir Drage Berentsen.

Many social and economic activities are heavily affected by weather variables such as temperatures and precipitation. In this master thesis, the students will explore the relationship between weather variables and economic decisions made by Norwegian households and/or businesses. In addition, the students will explore how climate change, through its effect on temperatures and precipitation, will affect these economic decisions into the future.

Examples of relationships to explore are the effects of heatwaves on human mortality rates, extreme precipitation on agricultural production, or drought on hydropower production. The exploration can be either on the macro or micro level and can be in the form of either a statistical analysis or modelling exercise. For the prediction exercise, the students will have access to novel climate forecasts from the Climate Futures project. An interesting question to explore is how access to improved seasonal weather forecasts can mitigate the harmful economic impacts of climate change.

Supervisor: Geir Drage Berentsen.

Organizing and analyzing data from the Norwegian directorate of fisheries.

Supervisor: Arnt Ove Hopland.

Supervisor: Øyvind Thomassen.

Contact: oyvind.thomassen@nhh.no.

I have three data sets that you can use for the thesis: 1) price lists with car model variant and some technical characteristics, 2) new registrations of car model engine variants, by age and sex of the registered owner, 3) the annual rules for calculating the registration tax (engangsavgift). 

For most uses, you will want to merge data sets 1) and 2). This will entail some tedious data work (probably using Stata or R), because of a lack of exact common identifiers. 

The data go up to 2015, but it may be possible to obtain more recent data. 

There are many questions that could be answered with the data, including saying something about the effect of the favorable tax treatment given to electric vehicles, which probably explains their large market share in Norway. 

To choose this topic you must have taken a course in econometrics.

Supervisor: Øyvind Thomassen.

Contact: oyvind.thomassen@nhh.no.

Like my topic ‘Econometric analysis of the sales of new cars in Norway’, this topic is based on data on cars in Norway. However, for this topic, I currently do not have the data, but I believe they can be obtained from Statens Vegvesen (Norwegian Public Roads Administration).

My other topic uses data on the flow of new cars. This topic uses data on the stock of cars. The two data sources could conceivably be combined.

Background from a course in econometrics is needed.

How does natural resource extraction such as oil&gas production affect nearby firms in other sectors, such as manufacturing and services? Potential agglomeration effects could benefit firms, but increased competition for labor or more corruption might harm firms. Since firms are the backbone of every modern economy, these considerations are crucial to understand whether natural resources are a blessing or a curse.

Supervisor: Paul Pelzl.

Potential topics are:

• Zero emissions (in shipping/buildings/road veh/airplanes): too much, or just right?
• Certificates of Origin for Electricity; Stepchild or rising star?
• A carbon cap for Norwegian farmers: Let forests do what cows and farmers cannot?
• Carbon footprint and economic analysis for a firm/sector
• Hydrogen: which part is failing: cars, hydrogen or filling and logistics
• A new look at biomass and biofuels: can photosynthesis propel transport
• Oceans in a sustainability strategy
• Solar power: if a leap lies ahead, what can trigger it
• Decentralized power generation in Norway: framework and business analysis
• Renewable power in Norway: shall it expand, and with what instruments
• A role for Norway as a battery for Europe’s intermittent power
• A business analysis of Norway’s three proposed carbon capture and storage projects (cement, fertilizer, waste dump)
• Analysis of emission reduction prospects in Norwegian transport
• Econometric analysis of demand for energy (or carbon) intensive goods, transport
• Forests: More wood and biomass in buildings: Economic analysis of climate prospects
• Financial markets: is there evidence of ‘sin portfolios’ or ‘virtue’ (or green/fossil)? The value of fossil assets / promises in financial markets
• Analysis of CO2 markets
• Modeling energy exchange in Northern Europe

Supervisor: Gunnar S. Eskeland.

In cooperation with ENOVA

Contact: Gunnar Eskeland (NHH) and Børge Nilssen Stafne (ENOVA)

In cooperation with ENOVA

Contact: Gunnar Eskeland (NHH) and Arnt Gunnar Lium (ENOVA)

Supervisor: Stein Ivar Steinshamn.

Supervisors: Endre Bjørndal and Mette Bjørndal.

Supervisors: Endre Bjørndal and Mette Bjørndal.

Supervisors: Endre Bjørndal and Mette Bjørndal.

Supervisors: Endre Bjørndal and Mette Bjørndal.

Supervisors: Endre Bjørndal and Mette Bjørndal.

Supervisors: Endre Bjørndal and Mette Bjørndal.

Around the world, the governments are imple- menting policies to foster the introduction of renewable energy. In that context, there are different research questions to develop in a master thesis that could contribute to develop a sustainable economic system.

1. Which will be the relation between renewable energy and hydrogen?
2. Which are the policies introduced in cities to reduce carbon emissions?
3. Which will be the impact of the adoption of renewable energy in women unemploy- ment? Could the introduction of renewable energy increase the gender gap?
4. Which will be the changes in the design of electricity markets induced by the intro- duction of renewable energy?
5. Which is the relation between hydrogen and lithium batteries? Which is the best way to store electricity in the short-term and in the long-term?
6. Which policies could be implemented to promote energy effciency?
7. How do the electricity grid need to change to accommodate renewable energy?

Supervisor: Mario Blazques de Paz

Electricity markets are moving through the integration around the world. Moreover, the countries are increasing their investments in renewable production capacity to fulfil with the agreements in carbon emission reductions. In that context, the transmission grid plays a crucial role promoting the integration of electricity markets and accommodating the renewable production capacity into the system. In re- lation with this topic, there are different research questions that could be of interest to develop a master thesis.

1. Which should be design of electricity markets in the presence of transmission con- straints.
2. Could the integration of electricity markets in Europe increase competition? Which will be the impact of that integration in the investments in transmission capacity, and in renewable production capacity?
3. Which should be the relation between the spot and the redispatch market when the transmission lines are congested? How we can design those markets to increase com- petition?
4. How should the regulator design transmission tariffs to guarantee investments in trans- mission capacity, and transmission effciency?

Supervisor: Mario Blazques de Paz

Since 2015 European banks must disclose their operations in tax havens. These operations involve activities like complicated tax arbitrage strategies. While technically legal, tax arbitrage may be morally questionable and sometimes courts make rulings turning some tax arbitrage strategies illegal. How does the involvement of banks in tax havens correlate to their corporate governance? What is the relationship between a bank’s ethical credo and the ethicality of the bank’s behavior?

Starting point: https://policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/opening-the-vaults-the-use-of-tax-havens-by-europes-biggest-banks-620234/.

Supervisor: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman.

Besides having adverse humanitarian effects, natural disasters may have a large detrimental impact on local business activity in the affected region. On the other hand, unaffected yet nearby regions may experience a surge in business activity, as these regions compensate for the neighboring downturn. The aim of this master thesis is to quantify these and potentially other effects using Indonesian data on various types of natural disasters and on manufacturing, thereby shedding light on the economic effects of natural disasters across space. The thesis requires some training in econometrics and motivation to do a considerable amount of data work. Regarding business activity, data comes from the Indonesian manufacturing plant census and can be provided by the supervisor; regarding natural disasters, data comes from https://www.desinventar.net/. Please note that a thesis on this topic cannot be written in Spring 2023 due to parental leave of the supervisor.

Key references

• Kirchberger (2017): Natural disasters and labor markets. Journal of Development Economics, Volume 125, pages 40-58.
• Gignoux and Menendez (2016): Benefit in the wake of disaster: Long-run effects of earthquakes on welfare in rural Indonesia. Journal of Development Economics, Volume 118, pages 26-44.

Supervisor: Paul Pelzl.

Public procurement involves a large amount of money and involves a wide range of sectors. In Norway public procurement was almost 600 million NOK in the 2019 statistics and the public bought everything: from toilet paper and office supplies to new roads, high-tech hospital supplies and defense material. Data on official tenders (possibilities for contracting with the public sector) are announced on doffin.no and there is a special complaint committee dealing with disputes related to public contracts. This offers a rich amount of data to explore topics within public procurement.

For instance, sometimes a public entity can pretend to be looking for a contractor in a competitive manner, however the phrasing of the contract allows the entity to choose preferentially a predetermined contractor. This step can be part of a larger corruption kick-back scheme that is well-hidden beneath a veil of legality. There could also be differences in how public procurement in various dimensions (geographical, type of public entity, etc.). This topic allows students to investigate procurement tenders and complaints on decisions made to determine whether there is evidence of specific patterns or preferential treatment.

Necessary skills: web scraping, textual analysis, statistical/econometric analysis

Supervisors: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman and Malin Arve.

Government support to firms during the Covid-19 pandemic was comprehensive and supposed to quickly reach businesses. This may have lead to some firms exploiting government funds that were not eligible. For example, some companies may have been reconstructed to utilize the support schemes and then initiate bankruptcies in parts of companies. It may also be of interest to look at risk factors that arise in companies that receive payments from several support schemes. This study will contribute to an evaluation of how well the grant schemes have worked.

Supervisor: Maximilian Todtenhaupt.

The lock-down of Norway on March 12, 2020 meant that many businesses had problems paying taxes and fees. In order to alleviate the burdens and avoid bankruptcies, the government, with effect from 12 June 2020, issued a regulatory provision that allows for deferral of payment for most tax and duty claims. This has led to a halving of bankruptcies compared with 2019 and raises several interesting, empirical questions: Have schemes led to companies being kept alive that would normally have gone bankrupt? How can the tax administration predict bankruptcy among firms?

Supervisor: Maximilian Todtenhaupt.

How does natural resource extraction such as oil&gas production affect nearby firms in other sectors, such as manufacturing and services? Potential agglomeration effects could benefit firms, but increased competition for labor or more corruption might harm firms. Since firms are the backbone of every modern economy, these considerations are crucial to understand whether natural resources are a blessing or a curse.

Supervisor: Paul Pelzl.

In a series of influential studies, scholars have identified that companies benefit from conflict. Arms companies are involved in smuggling, diamond mining companies exploit the chaos to secure extraction rights and corrupt officials disclose top secret information. Every conflict is different and firms will find a way to profit from the chaos.

Possible questions are: do these findings still hold in recent times, from for e.g. 2005 to 2020? Are the perpetrators different? Can we link perpetrators through their board composition? How connected are the boards of companies that violate embargoes? How does corporate governance influence illegal activities? 

Starting point: DellaVigna, S. and La Ferrara, E., 2010. Detecting illegal arms trade. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2(4), pp. 26-57.

Supervisor: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman.

Supervisor: Øyvind Thomassen.

Contact: oyvind.thomassen@nhh.no.

I have three data sets that you can use for the thesis: 1) price lists with car model variant and some technical characteristics, 2) new registrations of car model engine variants, by age and sex of the registered owner, 3) the annual rules for calculating the registration tax (engangsavgift). 

For most uses, you will want to merge data sets 1) and 2). This will entail some tedious data work (probably using Stata or R), because of a lack of exact common identifiers. 

The data go up to 2015, but it may be possible to obtain more recent data. 

There are many questions that could be answered with the data, including saying something about the effect of the favorable tax treatment given to electric vehicles, which probably explains their large market share in Norway. 

To choose this topic you must have taken a course in econometrics.

Supervisor: Øyvind Thomassen.

Contact: oyvind.thomassen@nhh.no.

Like my topic ‘Econometric analysis of the sales of new cars in Norway’, this topic is based on data on cars in Norway. However, for this topic, I currently do not have the data, but I believe they can be obtained from Statens Vegvesen (Norwegian Public Roads Administration). See information here: https://www.vegvesen.no/om-oss/om-organisasjonen/apne-data/api-for-kjoretoyopplysninger/utvidet-utlevering-av-kjoretoyopplysninger/

My other topic uses data on the flow of new cars. This topic uses data on the stock of cars. The two data sources could conceivably be combined.

Background from a course in econometrics is needed.

Including the use of bonus pay (case studies or across companies), how to measure performance, balanced scorecard (or alternative ways to use key performance indicators for management control purposes), drivers of profitability in an industry or a company, beyond budgeting, transfer pricing, and organizational boundaries.

Supervisor: Iver Bragelien.

Supervisor: Øystein Foros.

Supervisor: Øystein Foros.

Supervisor: Øystein Foros.

Supervisor: Øystein Foros.

Sammenligne f.eks. Norge og Finland som har ulik markedsstruktur. Mye deskriptiv empiri for å bedre forstå markedet og forskjellen mellom landene.

Supervisor: Øystein Foros.

Kulturminister Trine Skei Grande har nylig foreslått å utvide bokavtalen. Det vil gi en lengre fastprisperiode og høyere priser på opptil 65 prosent av bøkene. Den norske bokavtalen, som gir forleggerne rett til å sette en fast pris på nye bøker, er havnet i søkelyset til Efta-landenes overvåkningsorgan Esa. Nylig besvarte Nærings- og fiskeridepartementet (NFD), på vegne av den norske regjeringen, en rekke spørsmål fra Esa om forholdet mellom bokavtalen og EØS-avtalens eksplisitte forbud mot prissamarbeid i artikkel 53. Her kunne det være interessant å sammenligne med kommisjonens sak mot Amazon ift most-favored nation (MFN) klausuler.

Supervisor: Øystein Foros.

Med utgangspunkt i prosjektet Moving towards the market of one? Competition with personalized pricing and endogenous mismatch costs, jobbe med applikasjoner? Kan også knyttet opp mot AI.

Supervisor: Øystein Foros.

Tjenesten microdata.no gir tilgang til variabler på individnivå om befolkning, utdanning, sysselsetting, inntekt, formue, gjeld, skatt, trygd, barnevern, valg og boforhold. Jeg har ikke et bestemt spørsmål i tankene, men veileder gjerne oppgaver som bruker disse dataene. Studenter som ønsker å gjøre dette kan få tilgang til microdata.no gjennom NHH. Bakgrunn fra et kurs i økonometri er sterkt å anbefale.

Supervisor: Øyvind Thomassen.

Utilizing weather data and AIS data, we aim to evaluate the influence of climatic events on routine maritime trade operations. Significant events, such as the draught restriction in the Panama Canal due to severe droughts, have resulted in costlier transits and prolonged waiting time durations. This thesis can investigate the externality cost of severe weather patterns, such as intensified El Niño.

Supervisor: Gabriel Fuentes

By quantifying shipping emissions, including greenhouse gases (GHGs) and sulfur, a thesis on this topic can investigate the impact of maritime climate-related policies on the overall trajectory of vessel emissions. There's ongoing debate surrounding regulations like the IMO 2020 Sulphur Cap and the introduction of measures like the Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII). We will evaluate the appropriateness and effectiveness of these regulations.

Supervisor: Gabriel Fuentes

Maritime investments face uncertainties with evolving climate-related policies. A seemingly recent and valuable asset today might become obsolete or uncompetitive due to policy shifts in the near future. A thesis on this topic could aim to introduce a model that navigates potential scenarios related to the progression of climate policies.

Supervisor: Gabriel Fuentes

The phenomenon of "dark fleets" refers to vessels that operate in hidden or illegal capacities, often eluding detection through various means. Leveraging a blend of AIS (Automatic Identification System) data and satellite optical imagery, we can observe the activities of these fleets, particularly in the grain and oil trade sectors. Your thesis could focus on the externalities of the dark fleet on the legal market or the effect on trading patterns.

Working with Vake.ai

Supervisor: Evelina Gavrilova-Zoutman and Gabriel Fuentes

In 2019 before the sanitary emergency started, Norway received 5.88 million tourists representing 7,04 billion dollars and 1,7% of its GDP, reaching the highest levels in 2017. In this year, the tourism industry represented nearly 4,2% of Norwegian GDP and attracted around 170 billion NOK in total tourism consumption. These numbers show the potential of this industry for economic growth and depict some challenges. Particularly when we put the number of tourists in relation to the population of the country, it becomes clear the necessity to take a closer look at current policies and opportunities from point of view of operation research. 

For the City of Bergen, the cruise industry is especially important. Bergen receives the largest number of cruise tourists in the country, making of it one of the most visited cities in Scandinavia. 

It might be interesting for cruise companies to have touristic recommendations for their passengers, itineraries that provide the most benefits out the visit, and ensure the passengers will be back to the ship on time. But also, from the city hall perspective, it might be desirable to have a more homogenous distribution of the visitors across town in order to avoid crowds. Additionally, according to Bergen’s urbanization plan, there could be desirable areas of the city where it is more interesting to bring visitors and the money they spend on their trip, in the frame of urban development, social welfare, and environment. 

In order to assess the different locations, it is necessary to understand the city trends, socio-economic indicators, passenger preferences, and tourist offers, among others. Then use this information as support for an optimization model, allowing to suggest the best routes, both for the tourists and the City of Bergen. 

Main supervisor: PhD-candidate Andres Felipe Velez Correa.

In the oil and gas industry, helicopters are widely used for personnel and cargo transport between offshore platforms and heliports on the land. Therefore, the decision-making regarding the composition of the helicopter fleet and the allocation of this resource is vital for a stable operation of oil & gas exploration and extraction. Such tactical decision affects various aspects of an oil company, including contract utilization, carbon footprint, plan robustness and operating expenses.

However, the common practice in the industry is that the decision of fleet composition and allocation is still manually made based on demand forecast and individual’s experience. Such decision-making process cannot guarantee optimal solutions, is not scalable, and would likely lead to low resource utilization rate and high operating cost.

We are now seeing a clear trend in the oil and gas industry which is to apply automation in its various and complex decision-making process with the support of optimization. In terms of the helicopter fleet composition and allocation problem in this case, a decision support tool is expected to facilitate the decision of helicopter chattering and deployment with stochastic demand for the next planning period. Moreover, resource sharing, namely utilizing idle helicopter resources from other operators, is also a promising opportunity to increase the overall efficiency on an industry level and hence is becoming increasingly popular among different oil companies and helicopter operators.

With its trademark solution DaWinci as the industry standard in personnel logistics management, Quorum is the software supplier for many of the largest oil and gas companies in the world. Quorum Software Norway, as the market leader, is now cooperating with several major players in the oil and gas industry to address various new challenges with new software planning tools. This master project will take advantage of Quorum’s expertise in logistics management in oil and gas industry, and look at some of the following issues:

• Literature review on related problems and topics
• Mathematical formulation of the problem
• Study the uncertainty involved in this problem and methods to handle such stochasticity
• Study and develop necessary solution methods
• Analyze the numerical results based on a realistic problem instance from Quorum

Students choosing this project should expect to visit Quorum Software’s Bergen office to work alongside our optimization engineers for up to a week.

Collaborator: Quorum Software, contact person Xin Wang (xin.e.wang@quorumsoftware.com).

Supervisor: Yewen Gu.

Using empirical case studies to quantify how more accurate short-term weather forecasting can improve chartering decisions for a ship operator.

Working with company Western Bulk.

Supervisor: Gabriel Fuentes

We have comprehensive data on micro-level commodity trades, vessel behaviors, satellite-based information, in addition to the commodity and freight market data.  By addressing practical challenges faced by shipping companies, theses can be developed based on hands-on projects in collabration with shipping companies, banks or insurance companies. The following aspects serve as broad examples:

Topic 1: Trade flow and freight rate forecasting

Topic 2: Investment horizon. How to balance asset lifespan, carbon neutral regulation and investment costs.

Topic 3: Carbon costs in transportation

Topic 4: ESG disclosure in shipping & offshore industry

Topic 5: Climate change and credit risk in shipping & offshore

Supervisor: Haiying Jia

Topic 1: Marine accident analysis w.r.t. attributes such as trade, location, or crew

Topic 2: Automated underwriting in marine insurance

Topic 3: Risk exposure vs. financial return

Supervisor: Haiying Jia

Large cruise ships can be hard to exit in emergency situations and face unique challenges regarding evacuation. The ship’s steel hull has so far precluded the use of wireless technologies, which implies that all communications must be cabled-based, not even cell-phones work in an emergency. Another challenge is that evacuation plans are static and cannot be adapted as the emergency unfolds, something important in this context as different factors, such as winds, waves and tilting of the boat, affect passenger behaviour and the evacuation itself. In an ongoing project we try to develop a practical and theoretically sound stochastic and dynamic evacuation model for a large passenger ships aided by innovative wireless technology.

The project is in cooperation with NTNU (that covers the technical parts with respect to engineering and ship design) while NHH cover the dynamic modeling of an evacuation. The new wireless technology comes from ScanReach at Sotra - https://www.scanreach.com/ - and they are closely involved in the project.

Possible theses would cover aspects (to be agreed upon between supervisor and student) of modeling the evacuation or solving resulting models. There are many challenges in the modeling so that the resulting model is fast, which is required in an emergency.

Supervisor: Stein W. Wallace

For e.g. breakbulk and chemical shipping companies it is challenging to find out which cargoes fit best together into a voyage such that all cargoes can be transported on voyages and ships travel the least possible distance. The aim of this topic is to create a model with typical restrictions and find a good weighing of the different aspects of the objective function. In cooperation with Dataloy Systems, you can use data to develop and test your model as well as discuss the underlying concepts.

Supervisor: Julio Cesar Goez

Using unique daily spatial data for vessel employment, analyze how regional freight rate changes are driven by supply and demand, and whether the specifications and operator of a ship matters for its attractiveness in the market.

Supervisor: Haiying Jia.

Urban population growth is driving an increase in the amount of freight that goes into and out of cities. That growth poses an increasing challenge to freight transportation in smaller compact cities with difficult topology, which is typical for most Norwegian cities and numerous cities abroad.

This transportation challenge is exacerbated by phenomena such as an increase in internet trade, the demand for fast delivery, and a reduction in the ownership of private cars in the city centre which could be used for shopping. The result is an increase in the total volume of freight, and more critically, in the total number of deliveries, normally managed by a large variety of transportation companies.

Unless planned for and regulated, a consequence might be increased traffic, with enhanced energy consumption, that competes for available space and may affect living conditions for a growing urban population.

This project will study small city logistics, with a focus on Bergen, to find the options available for the authorities, business models for a better city logistics setup, as well as mathematical modeling. Will be done in cooperation with the City of Bergen, Vestland County, Bergen Chamber of Commerce and Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation (CET) at The University of Bergen. The project can be qualitative as well as quantitative.

The project is funded by the Research Council of Norway, and we offer two project grants of NOK 25,000.

Possible supervisors: Stein W. Wallace or Julio C. Goez.

The aim of emergency medical services (EMS) is to provide timely assistance to emergencies in order to save lives. Within this service, quality and capacity have sometimes deteriorated because staffing is not satisfactory and because the organization and directives are not clear. My interest is to work on the use of autonomous vessels to help ameliorate the burden that EMS staffing represents in the case of boat ambulances, and to improve the logistics planning of the system.

The aim is to analyze the use of autonomous vessels to improve response times and coverage. For example, by combining autonomous vessels with geographic information systems, one may use real time information of potential patients to improve the deployment of the resources. In particular my interest is to explore the following key research topic: designing algorithms with predictive capabilities that can be included in real time systems and capable of managing a continuous feed of data points coming from users’ cell phones and other sources.

Supervisor: Julio C. Goez.

Aim: find key drivers for decision-making process of repositioning empty vessels - current market conditions, sentiment - repeating patterns, etc.

Supervisor: Vít Procházka.

Car-sharing provides short-term vehicle access to a group of user members who share the use of a vehicle fleet owned by a car-sharing organization that maintains, manages, and insures the vehicles. An example of this model in Bergen is bildeleringer. Managing the fleet involves decisions such as the size of the fleet, how to position and reposition the vehicles, maintenance schedules, and pricing approaches. Strong background on analytics required

Supervisor: Julio C. Goez

The providers of online applications usually need to find the deployment of minimum cost for running it in the cloud. For the deployment, the planner on the application side must consider renting resources from cloud providers. However, there is a service level constraint that must be satisfied to ensure the quality of the service.

Supervisor: Julio C. Goez.

Scheduling takes an important role in making shipping as efficient as possible. We want to evaluate the quality of a schedule in practice. As the amount of information changes from what is available during planning to what is available when the plan comes into action, this is a complex problem. The aim of this topic is to find a model to evaluate a plan with respect to how it was used in practice. This will allow us to evaluate if companies improved their scheduling over time. Using data provided by Dataloy Systems, we want to test the model and for example analyse if the implementation of a scheduling software had a positive impact on the schedules.

Supervisors: Julio Cesar Goez

Fishing in the antarctic is a profitable business that is aiming to professionalize its scheduling. Fishing boats are fishing and at the same time producing various fish products on board, increasing their stock of fish products on board. On regular intervals they need to meet a cargo vessel to transfer all their cargo onto the cargo vessel. This is to avoid the fishing boat having to go all the way to the coast and losing valuable fishing time. We want to find a model that fits this operation and can be extended to other storage scenarios (storage on the cargo ship, storage at a warehouse the cargo ship delivers to)

Supervisor: Julio Cesar Goez

For a ship that should visit several terminals in a port to discharge cargo and load cargo scheduling these terminal visits is not trivial. Each terminal has an individual waiting list, each cargo potentially has a deadline when it needs to be discharged or loaded and additionally the ship is not allowed to be overloaded at any point in time. We are interested in a model to evaluate the quality of different solutions.

Supervisor: Julio Cesar Goez