While writing my Thesis...!!

In order to carry out the research of my thesis, I have to make use of firm specific data, in this case from the Worldbank enterprise survey. These data are not publicly available and can only be used for research purposes, so I had to ask permission and explain the goal of my research before I gained access to the enormous dataset. My first task is to filter the interesting data which I can later use for my regression analysis. During the course of my research I will have meetings with my supervisor on a regular basis, to guide me through the process and provide me with helpfull feedback. I started 2 weeks ago, but haven't seen my supervisor even once. Was he sick, you might wonder, or can't he be bothered? None of all this is the case. As he is really into modern communication he prefers to 'meet' on Skype instead of in his office. This has worked perfectly well so far and we are both very happy with this way of coummunication. As I mentioned before I have to plan my near future and make a decision on what to do when my studies are over. I'm consisering to apply for some traineeships, because I regard them to be the ideal way to get a job in the current jobmarket. For one of the traineeships I applied for, het Rijkstraineeship at the Dutch government, I just heard I was selected to participate in the next round of the application procedure. As this is something I would love to do, you would understand that I'm currently very excited about it. I will complete this capacity test next week, so I will be happy to update you all in my next blog!
Cheers!

It's Thesis time!

I will start writing my thesis from next week onwards. The goal of my research is to assess whether there exists a home market effect for foreign subsidiaries of multinational companies in developing countries. In short, does the extent of foreign ownership influence these firms' productivity? If everything works out as planned I will finish my thesis and therefore my Masters' studies in about 10 weeks, so I should start thinking about what to do next. I really would like to enrol in a traineeship-programme. The application deadline for many traineeships is in the course of this month. This effectively means that I find myself writing several motivation letters for the most attractive traineeships, before pimping my CV one last time, hoping to be invited for an interview or to succeed to the next round of the application procedure. In the mean time, I’m working out my take home exam for the course Multinational Firm, which is officially my last exam ever. I’m not so sure if this is exciting or sad. While writing this blog I once again realize that I'm on the brink of starting my professional career. But before I will dress up in suit and tie, I will enjoy every last bit of my life as a student. In  my next blog I will tell you all about the progress I made with my Master thesis research, as well as my quest in search of a challenging and exciting traineeship.

Cheers!

Attending the Shell company event and ECU’92’s economic conference on confidence.

As I will be graduating in the near future, I have to start thinking about what to do after. Although I don't have a clear future prospect yet, I found it interesting to visit the Shell company event, which was organized recently at the UCU campus. On the one hand to get an idea what the company is all about, on the other hand to prepare a bit for the upcoming job search and the related interview and selection procedure. It was just this that I liked best of the evening, apart from the drinks of course. In a workshop with two HR-employees they explained a shift in selection procedures is currently going on, away from the traditional focus on the grade lists and board memberships, exchange semesters and other extracurricular activities, towards a more reflective manner of selection.

They believe that if one is able to reflect and learn from past experiences, this potential employee is also able to apply this in his/her work, benefitting the company. I find this very appealing.

I recently attended ECU'92's economic conference on confidence. They managed to attract some very interesting and influential speakers, of which Arnold Heertje and Sweder van Wijnbergen were certainly most prominent. Too bad the latter speaker couldn't make it in the end, but it was fascinating to hear professor Heertje lecturing. At age 73, he is still unbelievable passionate about economics, and he's able to give a clear overview of the current affairs. According to professor Heertje, the current consumer confidence crisis is not only bad at all. Although he acknowledges the negative side that the economy is not performing well currently, and an increase in consumer spending rather than saving could help to boost the economy to get out the crisis. He points at the positive sides of the increased savings by consumers. He argues that consumers are improving their financial situation by paying off debts and saving money, which in the future can be applied to finance new investments by companies, thus stimulating the economy in the long run. I think this is a very interesting line of thought.

This will be it for now. Soon I will be wrapping up my last 2 courses of my study career, before starting to write on my thesis.

Cheers!

Lars

Thesis-Topic-Application-Stress!!!!

Time flies when you're having fun, and apparently I have had my fair share lately. Without realizing it all too well I have passed well beyond the half way mark of the Master programme. I passed both last periods courses, leaving me with only 2 more courses and a thesis, before I have to start competing in the job market myself. The course Multinational Firms is being teached by one of my favourite Profs, and aims at providing state of the art insights of the current line of thought in economics on the individual firm level. The other course, Empirics of Globalization, aims at explaining the global patterns of Globalization over a very long time span. Me and a fellow student are currently writing on a paper which hopefully can serve as a critique on a famous paper “The Reversal of Fortune” by Acemoglu, Johson & Robinson. As I mentioned above, we are approaching the Master thesis rapidly, which meant we had to subscribe to one of the topics recently. All in all this has been rather stressful, for various reasons. At the first date, there were some IT issues which had to be sorted out before students could sign up for their favourite subject. Therefore the ‘excitement’ was postponed for 3 days, at 9 A.M. sharp. Again, something went wrong with the subscription procedure, effectively meaning I was refreshing the wrong folder for several minutes, only to find out the subject picking procedure had started in another folder. When I finally accessed this folder, my top 3 choices of topics were of course gone, so I had to look for an alternative. In the end I found a topic and after subscription I actually felt rather content. I’m going to check whether there is a home effect for foreign subsidiaries of multinational firms. I came to realize I liked this topic better than my previous top 3, so it worked out in that sense, and I’m going to have the supervisor of my choice. All in all I’m looking forward to writing the thesis, although this will prove to be my final study assignment at the Utrecht School of Economics. The last part of my study career will probably also be the busiest, but I will try to post a new blog regularly to get you an idea what is going on!

Time flies when you´re busy!!

I know, my last blog was posted some time ago, but I got an excuse for the delay. The period after our Christmas holidays has been rather hectic will all the schoolwork due in January. First, we had to hand in our country reports on selected Sub-Saharan Countries (Madagascar & Zambia in my case) for the course Institutions, Growth & Development, with an analysis of their economic development over the last 50 years. All in all it has been a very interesting project and to give you a very brief conclusion; the prospects for the near future look bright for either country. Although, economic development from 1950 till roughly 2000 was characterized by periods of rapid growth, followed by periods of similar decline, the growth performance from about 2002 onwards has been very spectacular. The biggest challenge this time is to achieve sustainable long run growth. In an interactive session we presented our results in a more detailed way, as did our fellow students. It was really interesting to see that each case needs a different approach but overall the prospects look positive. In the meantime, I was supposed to prepare a discussion session with my project group on the economic impact of the introduction of the potato in Europe. This all seems rather trivial, but some researchers have shown that the potato did actually have a very positive impact on urbanisation and total population growth. Without going in too much detail one of the main underlying reasons is the high nutritional value of the potato, which coincided with an  increase in demand for nutritious food at the start of the Industrial Revolution. The potato allowed (more) people to live in cities and work in the big factories, which eventually sparked economic growth in Western Europe (and the world).

After all, these very interesting project assignments were obviously concluded by an exam for either course, we wrote them last week’s Wednesday & Friday. After our last exam, it was finally time to relax a bit. We gathered with most students in our Master’s programme to enjoy the afternoon.

At the end of the day I realized that we are already half way our Master’s, time flies. I have two more courses to follow, Multinational Firms and Empirics of Globalisation, before I conclude my studies with my Master’s thesis. 

December 21st 2012...

We are only with a few students in the Globalisation & Development track. This is nice, as you get to know all your fellow students way easier than in larger tracks. We attend the classes with the same small group all the time, so you start to chat with one another more easily outside class. There seems to be quite some connection amongst each other as outside Uni activities are organized all the time. This week there was a gathering together at one student’s place with food and wine. Another good example of the nice atmosphere between the Masters students is the snow fight we had after (and between) class a few weeks ago. The first snowflakes had fallen and everything outside looked nice and white, a good opportunity for some fun in the snow. Almost all students in the track joined and it took half an hour before we finally finished our battle. All in all these things really add something to the experience of being a student at Utrecht University.

And then to question that has been puzzling a lot of people in meantime: Is the end of the world really approaching? If the Maya people were right with their calendar, which would denote the end of the world on the 21th of December in 2012, the apocalypse of the world would come today and this would effectively be my last blog for the Utrecht University School of Economics. However, according to Maya Nobel laureate Rigoberta Menchú the whole ‘End of the World’ story is all non-sense, which is only being made up by sensationalist merchant people. Good news for us, as we are on the brink of enjoying our well-deserved Christmas break.

This break will not only mean that I will gather together with friends and family to enjoy nice food and drinks and open the presents underneath the Christmas tree. I will have to do some catching up with reading some articles for the courses I’m currently following and today we will receive our feedback on the Draft version of our paper we submitted for the course Institutions, Growth & Development. Hopefully, this will not be the end of the world. Probably not!

For now, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a happy 2013!!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

When writing my previous blog, I was just preparing for the exams of Period 1. These were my first exams for the Masters program International Economics & Business and I did not really know what to expect from them. It had been a pretty hectic period altogether, with lots of deadlines and project group work. To be honest I couldn’t wait for it all to be finished.

After two weeks of waiting, we finally received our final grades, and I am glad to say that I have passed them both. In the meantime the next period has already kicked off, with some new exciting courses. I am currently following the course Urban Development, digging into the theory and challenges behind development in urban areas. The course Institutions, Growth & Development explores the differences in economic growth patterns across countries and their underlying reasons.

The main assignment consists of writing a report on two Sub-Saharan African countries, Zambia and Madagascar in my case, to find out whether their economic development is in line with the literature.

Apart from the actual studying we got something else exciting going on, namely the fact that our department of the Masters Program has a certain fund available to organize study-related activities. One can think of a intriguing guest lecture, a movie night, meet and great with an institute in the field or even a conference. We are currently determining what activity would be the most popular among the students.

Apart from all these exciting study related topics this period is going to be an extremely hectic one. First of all, we have to start thinking about what to do after we finish our studies. In relation to this labour market orientation process I am attending ECU ‘92’s Economic Career Event, on the 29^th of November. Secondly, it is time to determine what courses to follow in the third period, which is the last term in which I will effectively be following courses before I write my final thesis. Thirdly, the deadline for handing in a thesis proposal is rapidly approaching. This is the option to come up with an own thesis proposal or to write the thesis at a company.

As December is quickly approaching, it is almost time to shave off my contribution to the Movember movement. In all honesty, there isn’t much to shave off, but hey, at least I tried. We are slowly moving towards the most wonderful time of the year. The days are getting shorter, nights are getting longer, the temperature is getting colder and the cocoa is getting warmer. Despite all of this, it is still my favourite part of the year, as the Christmas holidays are upon us. At the beginning of December I will celebrate Sinterklaas with my family and some really close friends, so I should start waking up my creative side and come up with a nice poem and ‘Surprise’. At the end of the month, my family will come together to celebrate Christmas and I am looking forward to spending some long awaited family time. Also, I can’t wait to see my mother’s completely decorated Christmas tree with real candles, bright red balls and an astounding star at the pinnacle of it all. Finally, we head towards the end of the year accompanied by the musical prowess of Radio 2’s Top 2000, and obviously the grand finale: New Year’s Eve.