Economics Honours Thesis Topics
The Honours Program features a supervised thesis on an agreed topic, providing students with a comprehensive introduction to economic research.
The following projects have been proposed by School of Economics staff for 2026. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list; additional projects will be added as they become available.
Students who are enrolled in, or considering the Bachelor of Economics (Honours) program for 2026 are encouraged to contact the potential supervisors listed to express their interest if there is a particular topic they would like to explore for their thesis.
Project | The Gig Economy and Career Trajectories (L-LEED) |
Industry Partner | ABS |
Supervisor(s) | Dr Josh Merfeld |
Description | Platform gig work may represent temporary flexibility allowing workers to smooth income during career transitions, or permanent precarity trapping workers in low-quality employment. If gig work facilitates transitions to stable employment, policies should support it; if it traps workers, stronger regulation may be needed. Problem being addressed LEED data may partially capture gig workers through tax records (though independent contractors pose classification challenges), enabling comparison of workers with gig economy spells to traditional employment trajectories. Yet identifying true gig workers in administrative data is difficult and those identified may be selected samples not representative of all gig participants. Research Question Does gig economy participation facilitate transitions to stable employment or represent an absorbing state of permanent precarity, and do outcomes differ systematically between young labour market entrants and displaced workers using gig work as a fallback? What the student will investigate Identify gig-like patterns in LEED; track pre/post trajectories; test whether gig participation predicts advancement or stagnation; analyse heterogeneity. Possible methods to use Classification algorithms; event-study; matching; trajectory modelling; latent class analysis. |
Project | Misallocation and Zombie Firms (BLADE) |
Industry Partner | ABS |
Supervisor(s) | Dr Andrés Bellofatto and Prof Begoña Domínguez |
Description | Global productivity growth has slowed dramatically, with misallocation of capital and labour dragging down productivity by 0.6 percentage points annually. Financial crises may impede efficient firm expansion through credit rationing, allowing "zombie firms" with low returns to continue operating while high-return firms face capital constraints. Problem being addressed Measuring misallocation requires distinguishing genuine productivity differences from measurement error, and identifying which policies drive misallocation requires untangling multiple confounding factors. Zombie firms may be transitioning to new business models rather than genuinely unproductive, or may provide valuable employment stability during downturns even if economically inefficient. Research Question What is the magnitude of productivity loss from resource misallocation to zombie firms in Australian manufacturing, and can firm-level administrative data identify specific policy barriers preventing capital and labour reallocation to high-productivity firms? What the student will investigate Identify zombie firms; estimate productivity drag; test policies (credit, protection, regulation) associated with zombie survival; counterfactual reallocation. Possible methods to use Hsieh–Klenow misallocation metrics; frontier estimation; survival analysis; structural productivity modelling; counterfactual simulations. |
Project | Firm-Worker Matching and Wage Inequality LEED and PLIDA |
Industry Partner | ABS |
Supervisor(s) | Dr Andrés Bellofatto and Dr Mohamad Khaled |
Description | Rising wage inequality could reflect increasing returns to skill (productivity-based) or increasing sorting of high-skill workers into high-wage firms (matching-based), with profoundly different policy implications. If inequality is productivity-driven, education policy matters; if sorting-driven, competition policy and firm-worker bargaining institutions matter. Problem being addressed BLADE's matched employer-employee data can estimate firm and worker fixed effects to decompose inequality, but distinguishing whether high-wage workers and high-wage firms match because of complementarities (they're more productive together) versus market frictions (good matches are rare) requires additional assumptions about production technology and matching processes that may not be testable. Research Question How much of rising wage inequality reflects sorting of high-skill workers into high-wage firms versus increasing within-firm wage dispersion, and can matched employer-employee data distinguish productivity complementarities from search-and-matching frictions as mechanisms? What the student will investigate Estimate two-way fixed effects (AKM), decompose inequality into worker, firm, and match components; test sorting patterns and complementarities. Possible methods to use AKM two-way FE modelling; variance decomposition; correlation of effects; mobility-based identification; counterfactual decomposition. |
Project | Economic Indicators for QLD |
Industry Partner | Queensland Treasury Corporation |
Supervisor(s) | Potential Academic Supervisor for a: Prof Alicia Rambaldi and Dr Mohamad Khaled Potential Academic Supervisor for b: A/Prof Shino Takayama and Dr Nhan Phan |
Description | Objective The objective is to develop a single, centralised source of relevant Local Government data and information. This "one-stop shop" will enable LGSC to efficiently and effectively access data or information about a particular council.
Context QTC has collated multiple Local Government data sets (93 data sets; some spanning multiple years, which, if treated individually, amount to over 290 data sets), including:
The project objective aims to minimise inefficiencies and reduce reliance on individual staff knowledge by addressing the following risks:
While the data sets have been collated, we have yet to demonstrate how our staff can use them to produce valuable information products (treating information as an asset). Project Details Phase 1: Prototype Development
Phase 2: Process Development
Phase 3: Regional Economic Development Information Product
Outputs
Phase 1:
Phase 2:
Phase 3:
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Project | Estimates of productive capital stock for Queensland |
Industry Partner | Queensland Productivity Commission |
Supervisor(s) | |
Description | This is an existing data gap for the purposes of productivity analysis in Queensland. |
Sample of Relevant Literature |
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Project | Returns from Investment in Human Capital |
Industry Partner | Queensland Productivity Commission |
Supervisor(s) | Dr Josh Merfeld, Dr Lizi Yu, and/or Dr Haishan Yuan |
Description | Objective Over the last decade, there has been an increased policy focus on early intervention or preventative measures. As a result, there has been an increased level of government spending but what has been the return? The project will focus on a particular program or policy. The return could be measured by their contribution to economic growth, or public and private financial returns. Productivity issues and measurement issues will be highly relevant, and different methodologies and their strengths and weaknesses for the assessment of government investment in human capital will form part of the discussion. Contribution The research will be of practical use as it could provide guidance to governments in making physical/human capital investments. A specific contribution can also be made by choosing a highly policy-relevant issue for Queensland. Potential research questions
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Sample of Relevant Literature |
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Project | Decomposing Productivity Growth into Explanatory Factors |
Industry Partner | Queensland Productivity Commission |
Supervisor(s) | |
Description | Objective This project will seek to understand what explains productivity growth for Queensland industries. To produce a spreadsheet (or program in R/Python/other) to decompose productivity growth into explanatory factors. The report will explore different methodologies and their strengths and weaknesses. The project will also explore data availability for Queensland, making an assessment of which data source is most adequate for this project. Contribution This research project will help to develop the capacity to include decompositions of productivity measures (by industry) to better understand changes in Queensland's economic productivity performance. Potential research questions
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Sample of Relevant Literature |
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Project | Global Trade Dynamics |
Industry Partner | Queensland Treasury |
Supervisor(s) | A/Prof Eric Eisenstat, Prof Rodney Strachan, and/or Dr Haishan Yuan |
Description | Global trade dynamics have been changing rapidly over the recent years. These are likely to have caused a degree for uncertainty for export-oriented businesses and industries across Australia and Queensland. The purpose of the research is to identify the various economic impacts and the transmission mechanisms through which these uncertainties impact firms’ activities, and macroeconomic variables. A case study approach (looking at a number of firms, or a particular industry) may be an ideal to keep the project manageable. |
Project | Understanding bias in model-based pollution products across the globe |
Supervisor(s) | Dr Josh Merfeld and Emilia Tjernström |
Description | Air pollution is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity across the globe, especially in developing countries, leading to a multitude of health problems (Health Effects Institute, 2022; Fisher et al., 2021; Heft-Neal et al., 2018). However, while pollution monitoring stations are ubiquitous in many developed countries, they are lacking in other regions, with Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular, having sparse coverage (OpenAQ). Because of this, global pollution datasets often rely on model-based estimates, which rely on either models of the atmosphere or chemical-transport models. In addition, reanalysis products combine many different models and observations to create fine-tuned estimates across time and space, e.g. the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service Reanalysis (Inness et al., 2019). The recent improvement in machine learning methods has also led to new approaches to predicting pollution (e.g. Shen et al., 2024). However, there is very little evidence of the accuracy of these global products across different regions. To date, the closest work in this line of research is Jin et al. (2022), who compare and validate different products against open-source monitor data. Our goal in this project, however, is different. We aim to do the following: • Compare accuracy of global products against open-source monitor data, with the aim of analyzing these differences across regions. • Compare accuracy of public vs. private monitors, with a focus on disaggregating accuracy in high-pollution vs. low-pollution areas, authoritarian vs. democratic countries, etc. • Compare the uncertainty estimates of these global products against true values from open-source monitors. |
Relevant Literature |
Project | Annuities and Superannuation |
Supervisor(s) | Dr Andres Bellofatto and Dr Carlos Oyarzun |
| Description | Retirees often avoid purchasing life annuities. Adverse selection—where healthier individuals are more likely to buy annuities—can lead to thin private markets and justify a strong public pension system to provide longevity insurance. A key driver of low annuity demand is that retirees may value leaving bequests or retaining flexible access to savings. This project aims to study the implications of these problems, generating key insights to inform policy and regulation, with an especial focus on Australia’s retirement. |
Relevant Literature |
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Project | Designing Effective Communication Under Real-World Constraints |
Supervisor(s) | Dr Manuel Staab and Dr Kun Zhang |
| Description | Expert influence on public decisions has declined substantially in recent years, while misinformation spreads rapidly through social networks. This threatens decision quality across domains, from public health to climate policy, and poses fundamental challenges to how communities coordinate and cooperate. With societies facing increasingly complex problems that require cooperation, developing effective communication strategies and strengthening expert influence becomes urgent. Meeting this challenge requires understanding what makes communication effective. Research in economics and linguistics emphasises the importance of (mis)aligned objectives between communicator and decision maker, as well as the relevance of messages given the decision makers processing capacity and decision context. Yet existing frameworks address questions at two extremes: how to accurately transmit relevant information or how to prescribe nudges that do not require the provision of relevant information. This leaves a fundamental tension unexplored: decision makers need concise, actionable recommendations that minimise cognitive effort, yet brevity inherently sacrifices detail; simpler messages are easier to process but lose nuance, while comprehensive information is more accurate but cognitively demanding. By examining this challenge across scales, from strategic interactions to collective environments, we aim to understand which forms of communication reliably transmit information, how messages spread through communities, and ultimately to generate evidence-based principles that support experts and institutions in designing communication that fosters better decisions. |
Relevant Literature |
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Project | What do humans, lemmings, and sheep have in common? Understanding peer effects and peer information. |
Supervisor(s) | Prof Daniel Zizzo and Dr Ozan Isler |
| Description | Humans are highly social animals who naturally tend to follow the behaviour and advice of their peers and authority figures, often without any apparent reason. There are plenty of environments where this seems to take place: from individual investors in the stock market to decisions whether to vaccinate or to wear seat belts, from doing the same as coworkers in companies to making decisions about binge drinking or alcohol consumption. In many real world environments there may be entirely self-interested reasons to follow what others are doing, but the controlled nature of economic experiments enables us to identify whether this is all there is. Are we really like lemmings and sheep, who are known to blindly follow their mates off a cliff? If not, what is that drives conformism? Policy makers have used social information as a well to nudge behavior in desired directions, for example in tax compliance settings. If the social information is not believed, is this because they are not conformist or because they do not believe in the information they are given? We have conducted a series of online economic experiments to start looking at some of these questions. We welcome Honours students who may be interested in working on aspects of this research program. In addition to the references, we have a set of slides that we can provide to potential students. |
Relevant Literature |
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Project | Intergenerational Good Games, Sustainability and Cooperating with Future |
Supervisor(s) | Dr Carlos Oyarzun and Dr Metin Uyanik |
| Description | In many economic problems, actions of current generation have impacts on the well-being of future generations such as provision of public goods or public bads, exploitation of natural resources and climate change. Unlike in the static setting, the future generations cannot reciprocate or participate in the actions of the current generation. Several empirical and experimental studies have shown that even if the current generation have intra- as well as inter-generational social preferences, the natural resources tend to be overused which yields inefficiency and harms sustainability. Experimental results how that collective decision making has been effective in improving cooperation with future.
It has been shown in the theoretical literature that if individuals care about others' well-being (other-regarding preferences), the equilibria of the underlying game is Pareto efficient under some assumptions.
This project provides a theoretical model studying the intergenerational good games that allows individual's utility to depend on own consumption, current generation's utility and as well as future generations' utilities. It aims to provide conditions on the properties of intra- and inter-generational social preferences (caring about others) as well as the structure of collective decision-making process that yield cooperation and sustainability. |
Relevant Literature |
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Project | Information Design and Hold-up in a Bargaining Problem |
Supervisor(s) | Dr Carlos Oyarzun and Dr Metin Uyanik |
| Description | In many economic setting a single seller (a monopolist) sells a product to a buyer whose valuation of the good is both (i) unknown and (ii) partially determined by the buyer’s investment. Furthermore, the buyer may rely in more or less detailed information about how her valuation of the good may be affected by random idiosyncratic elements. For instance, consumers may look for information online to get better informed about the properties of the product. Examples include Google reviews, Domain Real State, Tripadvisor, etc. Examples of buyer decisions in the real state market include choices as the school for her children or buying a car.
This project aims to study how informativeness may interact with monopolistic pricing and buyers’ investment decisions to determine optimal information provision.
Students participating in this project will gain knowledge and experience in reviewing academic research papers, along with strengthening their knowledge of Game Theory and Information Economics.
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Relevant Literature |
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Project | Design of environmental markets such as pollution permits, carbon offsets, and biodiversity markets |
Supervisor(s) | A/Prof Lana Friesen and Prof Ian MacKenzie |
| Description | The thesis would examine how the design aspects of environmental markets influence the outcomes of those markets (e.g., initial permit allocations, price collars, trading rules). The thesis would likely use a lab experiment to collect empirical evidence, supported by a relevant theoretical framework. |
Relevant Literature | Friesen et al., 2022, “Mind your Ps and Qs: An Experimental Investigation of Variable Permit Supply in the US Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative”, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 112, 10220. |
Project | Biased Social Learning in Pricing and Negotiations |
Supervisor(s) | Dr Zachary Breig and A/Prof Antonio Rosato |
| Description | In many markets, when the quality of an asset or product is unknown, consumers often rely on the choices of others who may be better informed and try to glean information from them. However, correctly performing this "signal extraction" task requires a great deal of sophistication on the part of consumers. Indeed, a host of evidence from behavioural and experimental economics suggests that people are usually unable to correctly extract information from others' actions. This Honours project will investigate the properties of firm pricing and bargaining negotiations when consumers hold biased beliefs that prevent them from achieving correct learning. The results of the project will provide guidance for the regulation of markets with incomplete information, the prime example of which is the housing market. The project will also evaluate the impact of different negotiation protocols and disclosure policies for buyer welfare and market efficiency. The project will involve either a theoretical analysis or an experimental one (or a combination of both). The ideal candidate should have a solid foundation in microeconomics and game theory and be interested in subsequently applying for postgraduate research degrees. |
Relevant Literature | BANERJEE, A. V. (1992): “A simple model of herd behavior,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 107, 797–817. BOSE, S., G. OROSEL, M. OTTAVIANI, AND L. VESTERLUND (2006): “Dynamic Monopoly Pricing and Herding,” RAND Journal of Economics, 37, 910–928. EYSTER, E. AND M. RABIN (2010): “Naive Herding in Rich-Information Settings,” American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, 2, 221–243. NGANGOUE, M. K. AND G. WEIZSACKER (2021): “Learning from unrealized TAYLOR, C. (1999): “Time-on-the-Market as a Sign of Quality,” Review of Economic Studies, 66, 555–578. |
Project | Primary Care Networks: Formation and Impact |
Supervisor(s) | Dr Christiern Rose |
| Description | Primary Care Networks are collaborative groups of primary care providers. They have recently been rolled out in several developed countries. This project uses data from England. Conceived in the NHS Five Year Forward View in 2014, Primary Care Networks are collaborative groups of GP practices that work closely with other health and social care providers. By sharing resources, PCNs aim to improve the quality and coordination of primary care services, enhance access to a wider range of healthcare professionals, and ultimately, deliver better patient outcomes. Despite their extensive rollout, their impact on patient outcomes is poorly understood. We aim to address this first by modelling how these networks form, and second by using causal inference techniques to infer their impact on patients. |
Relevant Literature | Largely related to literatures on econometric models of network formation and impact of healthcare policy on patient outcomes. |