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TFG Economics: Instructions



This website is intended to offer preliminary information to students aimed at undertaking their Bachelor Thesis (TFG hereinafter), in the Bachelor in Economics degree. Before reading this page, it is a good idea to read the Home ( HOME ) and frequently asked questions ( FAQ ) pages of the TFG in Economics. To navigate this page, use the links and the back navigation button.

For the completion of the TFG, you must prepare a document in which the methodology and results of the work will be presented clearly and detailed and using a standard scientific format. The maximum length of the main text and the bibliography list will be 20 pages; the starting pages (including the title page, the abstracts in Spanish and English, the index of contents and the index of tavbles and figures, as well as the optional AI declarations and the acknowledgements and/or dedication), the tables and figures and the appendices, are counted separately. The font will be Times New Roman 12 pp. or similar. The line spacing or spacing will be double spaced and the pages will be numbered at the bottom in the center. All the details of the presentation rules of the TFG in Economics are in the corresponding section of the FAQ .

Index




Your Final Degree Project (TFG) of the Degree in Economics must answer a specific question within any area of the discipline of Economics. The TFG is presented as a document with a scientific article format . It is crucial that this document includes precisely all the relevant information , addressing the main aspects of your research with the necessary depth and in a reasoned manner . Keep in mind that the maximum length established in the presentation rules requires an important synthesis effort , which will have a relevant weight in the final evaluation of your work.

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Starting your TFG may seem overwhelming, but by following a few key steps, you can focus your research and develop a solid project.

  • First Step: Find your Topic and Research Question 
The first thing is to download and carefully read one or more suggested articles on the topics proposed for your TFG. (To find out how to search for them, consult the section " How can I search for scientific papers? ").
If you like the topic and you think that a TFG based on that article could be interesting, you already have a great advance. Even if the suggested articles do not motivate you completely, they may guide you to another one that does. The key thing is that you find a scientific article that serves as a starting point.
From there you should update the literature review that you find in that article and start thinking about alternative models, data or methods that allow you to formulate a specific question for your TFG.
Your research question could be of the type:
  • Application to another context: "These authors obtained this result for X countries in a certain period, but is the same situation observed in this other country or in this other period of time?"
  • Alternative methodology: "These authors obtained this result by applying this methodology or this econometric analysis, but would the result be maintained with this other methodology, econometric technique, or by controlling for this new variable?"
  • Implementation of models: "The econometric literature has developed a model, but there is no software that allows it to be implemented without knowledge of econometric programming. Would it be possible to do it in Gretl, Stata, R or Python, for example?"
  • Theoretical nature: Your question could also be theoretical, such as analyzing an allocation mechanism through a specific game, or extending a simple theoretical model to address an economic problem of interest.
  • Second Step: Get your Data or Define your Theoretical Framework
Once you have formulated your question:

  • If the question is empirical , you will need data to answer it. Sometimes, the data can come from the article itself that inspired your question, in which case you can move on to the next step. However, in most cases, you will have to find your own data (to find out where, consult the section " Where to find data for scientific papers "). At this stage, it is crucial that you do not waste time on the search.

  • If your question is theoretical (less common), you will need a starting theoretical framework to answer it. This framework can come from one of the articles that motivated your interest. Sometimes, your theoretical question can arise from stylized facts from the evidence found in a reference article. The next step will be to extend or adapt this theoretical framework to your question, establishing the necessary assumptions.

  • Third Step: Develop your Project Proposal

With a question and, if applicable, some data (or a theoretical framework), you already have the basis for a project that you can discuss with your tutor. You should be able to write your project clearly in no more than 3 pages . In this document, present a convincing work plan that demonstrates that your project is viable and can be executed in 12-13 weeks.
This document will be the embryo of your TFG (and will probably evolve to become the first section of the final document). Therefore, it is advisable that you write it already in the format that you will use for your TFG. (For the structure of the first section, see the section " What tool should I use to write my TFG? ").
In the session where you discuss your project with your tutor, you will jointly schedule a work plan. The sooner you have this meeting, the better.

Your proposal should be a clear, concise, and well-structured document that outlines your research plan. It should include:

    • Title (A brief and informative title)
    • Abstract (A brief summary of what you intend to do, no more than 100 words)
    • Introduction (What is the topic about and what is your specific question, why is it relevant, and how does your work fit into the existing literature?) The introduction should clearly explain what you want to do and why it is important.
    • Literature Review (A brief review of the key papers related to your topic)
    • Methodology (How do you plan to answer your question? What model, data, or method will you use?) This section should include the methodology to be used, the data, and the hypotheses to be tested.
    • Expected Results and Work Plan (What do you hope to find and what are the steps you will follow?) You should be realistic about the time you will dedicate to the project.

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In the field of Economics, the most common format for communicating results is the scientific article. If you want to know which are the most valuable contributions on any economic topic, the quickest way is to search in the best international Economics journals.
Sometimes, a very relevant contribution is so recent that it has not yet been accepted for publication in a scientific journal. In those cases, it is common for it to be available as a Working Paper from some institution or, simply, as a "mimeo" on the author's website. Therefore, it is also an excellent idea to search in prestigious working paper series or visit the websites of economists who have made valuable contributions in your topic.

You should keep in mind that, with rare exceptions, the best contributions are written and published in English. For this reason, we recommend that you do not focus solely on local publications or papers in Spanish, even if your study focuses on the Spanish case.

To facilitate your search, the UC3M Library has prepared the website (in Spanish) TRABAJOS EN EL ÁMBITO DE LA ECONOMÍA Y DE LA EMPRESA (PAPERS IN THE FIELD OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS). There you will find interesting links, such as JSTOR (one of the most extensive online archives of scientific publications), Science Direct, Springer and Emerald journals. You also have direct access to specialized websites for working paper databases, such as IDEAS from Repec. Finally, you can use the search engine Google Scholar to explore publications related to a specific topic or a particular author.

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In your TFG you will frequently need data to present arguments and, if possible, to test hypotheses. You must assume that most likely no one has dedicated their time and effort to creating a database with which you can answer the question you are asking in your TFG. However, you should not despair. First, because you may be lucky enough to have access to a database that constitutes a good starting point to be able to do your work. In general, you should dedicate time and effort to learning the details of the database (that is, the variables that compose it and where the observations come from) as well as its weak points (errors in the codifications, absence of potentially important variables for your study, etc.), and to building variables from the original variables with which you want to carry out your study. But there is no doubt that if you can use a single existing database you will save a lot of time and effort. Therefore, your first step, once you know what types of data might interest you, will be to search the internet for data of that type.


If you are looking for Spanish data, a reasonable starting point is INEBASE from the INE (Spanish National Statistics Office). A particularly interesting service from the INE is the availability of microdata files. You have a portal for this service at " Products and services / Information / Microdata files ". However, you should keep in mind that the INE is not the only source of Spanish data. The Bank of Spain, for example, offers a portal for the dissemination of its statistics, " Bank of Spain - Statistics " where you can find a lot of data on the Spanish financial system. The offers the microdata from its surveys. The Ministry of Education has some databases on this portal that could perhaps be used if you want to study the levels of skills and abilities in the Spanish population. These are just a few examples. In general, when you know what type of data would interest you, think about the public administrations and research institutions whose activity could be related to your topic. It may be a good idea to visit their website and their publications service. Sometimes, even if they do not offer data directly, they do provide links where this data is available.

If you do not necessarily require Spanish data, then you have many fewer restrictions, because there are countries with a much greater tradition of data creation and dissemination than in Spain. The United States is the best example. A good starting point is the website of the American Association of Economists . The European Union also offers some aggregated statistics by countries and regions on its portal of EUROSTAT . The SHARE Project makes a microdata panel with information on health, socioeconomic status and family networks available to researchers. There are international organizations that offer data to make comparisons between countries. This is the case of the World Bank , (where you can find, for example, the data on governance WGI), the International Monetary Fund , and the OECD (where, for example, you have access to the PISA Report data ). There are also private international organizations that offer free data dissemination services: Measure DHS , for example, disseminates demographic and health survey data in more than 75 countries.

In any case, this guide is not exhaustive: there is a growing number of resources on the Internet with access to national and international databases that, depending on the objectives of your TFG, you will probably have to search for.

An option that you should not rule out is to ask the authors of a relevant publication for your TFG for the data they used. Sometimes, the authors of scientific articles are unable to disseminate the data from their studies for legal reasons of confidentiality. But on many occasions, these limitations do not exist.

Finally, through the website " PAPERS IN THE FIELD OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS " prepared for the TFG by the university library you have at your disposal interesting links to existing databases.

Having the data is only the beginning of the journey: You must be able to use them. Using basic data management programs like Excel for data manipulation is not recommended. Instead, one should use programming code or scripts, which ensure reproducibility of results from the outset and allow for quick modification or correction of any data-related steps.
For this task you should be able to use the Econometrics software you have learned during the degree. In one course you have worked intensively with Eviews, in another with gretl. Other popular programs like Stata might interest you. Stata is proprietary software and you would have to pay to install it on your computer, but version 9 is available in the university's computer rooms. In any case, once installed, Stata turns out to be an excellent tool both for data management and for being able to estimate popular econometric models. The free languages R or Python are also excellent alternatives, although you will need to invest some learning time.

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The content of the TFG is undoubtedly its most important part. However, a good TFG written in an unprofessional way increases the possibilities that it will not be understood and that in its defense before the committee you will have to make a greater effort to be able to convey your conclusions. Take the professional presentation of your work seriously because not doing so will probably negatively affect your final grade. You have, at least, three alternatives:

  • Simple word processing programs : If you know how to use a word processing program like LibreOffice Writer, you can write your TFG using this program and save it in pdf format. Many users of the Windows operating system use Word, which is another program for simple word processing. The advantage of these programs is that they allow you to quickly create simple documents with a reasonable appearance at a very low learning cost. The disadvantage is that they are not designed to comfortably write technical or scientific documents where mathematical formulas appear and there are objects such as sections, tables, figures, footnotes and bibliographic references that must be referenced within the document accurately and dynamically. For example, suppose you have six sections in your document, and you want to comment in your sixth section on something you have already presented in the third section. One solution is to write "As I commented in the third section...". The disadvantage of this solution is that if for some reason you decide to join the second and third sections, the reference is no longer correct. The same happens with tables, figures, page notes, bibliographic references, and, very importantly, equations.
  • LaTeX : The ideal is to use a word processor that easily takes care of numbering all these objects for you, objects that you can reference through labels that the processor understands, and that are replaced by the correct number in the final document. Another important property of a good word processor is that it can automatically generate tables of contents and bibliographic lists from the existing references in the document. In a good word processor, changes in the structure of the document and in the references are updated automatically without errors and without you having to devote any additional effort. LaTeX is a text typesetting system, especially oriented towards the creation of books, scientific and technical documents that contain mathematical formulas. With LaTeX, the document creation normally requires two stages: in the first, you have to create a source file using any text editor which, with the appropriate commands and orders, contains the text you want to print. The second consists of processing this file; the word processor interprets the orders written in it and compiles the document, leaving it ready to be sent to the corresponding output, be it the screen or the printer (Remember how scripts are executed in gretl? The idea is similar). You can use LaTeX on any platform. There are free versions on Windows, Linux, and MacOSX. Two useful links: the Wikipedia page and the official page of the LaTeX project .

  • LyX : Word and LibreOffice Writer are programs with the WYSIWYG philosophy, What You See Is What You Get, which means that what you see on the screen is your final document. With LaTeX, however, your source file includes commands and the document's content itself. This is a feature of LaTeX that makes it counterintuitive and difficult for many new users. A possible intermediate solution between working with a rudimentary word processor and working with LaTeX is provided by LyX. What is LyX? The best way to think about LyX is as a viewer of files written in LaTeX so that the creation of documents is more intuitive than using LaTeX. The final result, however, will normally be the same as using LaTeX (In fact, LyX does not work if you do not have LaTeX installed because LyX uses LaTeX). If you do not know LaTeX but you think it is important to use it in the writing with a standard scientific format of your TFG, LyX is probably the solution you are looking for because it has a much lower learning cost than LaTeX but maintains almost all its flexibility. Here you have the LyX official page from where you can install the latest version of Lyx for free. There are excellent tutorials (there are also some in Spanish, just search the web for "LyX manual", but I advise you to also look at one in English in any case) on how to start using it. You can download Lyx and practice with an introductory manual.

Here you have an example of the structure of a possible TFG document of an empirical nature in Spanish or in English . Of course, the sections (and their titles) in which this example document is organized are for guidance only. And remember that you must adhere to the presentation rules for the TFG document (including length, spacing and font size) established.


If you have problems installing programs like LyX (and LaTeX) on your computer, you can contact the university's support and consultation services, although you should keep in mind that advice on incidents related to PCs that are not owned by the Carlos III University of Madrid is not as extensive as the support for inventoried equipment. Another solution that usually works is to use a good internet search engine by typing your problem in the search field (For example: "Cannot install Lyx Windows").


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  • What tool can I use to prepare a presentation for the defense of my TFG?

    • Powerpoint or Google Slides are very popular tools, although they are not the best if we need to use mathematical expressions or reference objects. There are better tools to generate presentations of scientific papers, such as Beamer.
    • Beamer in LaTeX : Beamer is a LaTeX class, that is, a type of LaTeX document. The obvious disadvantage of this approach is that you must know LaTeX to use Beamer. The advantage is that, knowing LaTeX, you know how to make documents and presentations with a scientific format.
    • LyX : Beamer also works in LyX. All you have to do is check that you have installed LyX with the Beamer class package. To do this, simply check that you have the "presentation (Beamer)" option in Document > Settings > Document Class (within LyX you must have an open document to see this menu). If not (in Windows, Beamer may not be installed with Lyx when installing Lyx), use the MiKTeX package manager to install the necessary packages. Then open LyX and select Tools > Reconfigure. You should already have it installed. Making a presentation from LyX using Beamer will then be as simple as following the template for a 20-minute presentation that you have in File > New from Template > en_beamer-conference-ornate-20min.lyx . Remember that your presentation must last a maximum of 10 minutes, so you must be careful not to make it too long. Here you have a concise manual on how to make presentations in Lyx with Beamer.
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      • What is your tutor for? Your tutor is there to advise you on the preparation of your TFG during the semester in which you have enrolled to do it. They will inform you about the tools you can use. They should also discuss your TFG proposal with you and work with you on a work plan so that you can successfully execute your TFG on schedule. They can help you solve a specific problem in data processing, such as, for example, if your data is available in a proprietary software format that you do not have. Or, for example, if when you run a programming routine you do not get the results you expected and you do not know how to proceed.

      • What is your tutor NOT for? Your tutor is not there to tell you what question you should address in your TFG (then it would be his/her TFG, not yours). Nor to provide you with articles, data, or computer programs. Knowing how to use online resources, find data, and be able to download computer programs is an essential part of the learning and experience derived from the preparation of a TFG."
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