Assessment of Master Thesis – Opponent
Study programme:Quantitative Methods in Economics Field of study:Quantitative Economic Analysis
Academic year:2020/2021
Master Thesis Topic:Regression analysis of the relationship between economic growth and foreign aid in Africa
Author’s name:Jean Gabin Ngango
Ac. Consultant’s Name:Mgr. Milan Bašta, Ph.D.
Opponent:Ing. Karel Helman, Ph.D.
Criterion Mark
(1–4)
1. Clarity and comprehensibility of the thesis topic and aims 2
2. The extent and relevance of the description of the current state of knowledge 1
3. The complexity of the thesis topic 1
4. Method adequeteness for solving the given issue, correctness of the choice and use 3
5. The extent, quality and precision of the result description 3
6. Relevance and correctness of the result discussion 2
7. Factual contribution of the thesis result 2
8. Information source relevance and citation correctness 1
9. Logical structure and cohesion among individual parts 2
10. Grammar, linguistic style, terminology and overall arrangement 2
Comments and Questions:
The present thesis deals with very important topic – foreign aid and its impact on economic growth. The area of interest being Africa. I consider the selected topic to be appropriate, stimulating and very suitable for diploma thesis. I also happen to have the impression that the author was personally interested in the selected topic and put a lot of efforts in his thesis.
There is no clearly declared main goal of the thesis, but several research questions are raised, several research hypotheses are formulated and the ”general objective” of the thesis is stated as ”...to assess how foreign aid represented by net official development assistance relative to GDP affect economic growth in Africa”. In my opinion, this goal was, at least partly, achieved.
The thesis is clearly structured. I would like to emphasize that (as it seems to me) the author tried to apply the methods he learned throughout the course of studies.
In the thesis, strong emphasis is given on description of the phenomena of interest from theoretical point of view in chapters I and II. The author must have invested huge efforts in creating his reference list, which includes some (quite impressive) 80 sources. Unfortunately, I have found the first two theoretical chapters very difficult to read. While one reason undoubtedly being that I am not familiar with described economic indicators and theoretical models (practically whole chapter II), I suspect my difficulties may be at least partly because of ”quality” of the text itself. Sometimes it seemed to me some words were maybe missing, sometimes I was just unable to understand what the author meant to express by his sentences (eg. one of the assumptions on page 17: ”Many products and services are of vital significance to development and growth are not domestically generated at the early stage of development and it is essential and must be imported”). There is obviously an unfinished sentence above Figure 2 on page 24. For a non-specialist like me, the equations (models) in chapter II were difficult to read (understand), as proper (understandable) description of the symbols used is missing (eg in equations 7 on page 22, it is not very clear what is ”y”, ”Y”
or ”y_t”).
The ”statistical” part of the thesis (empirical analysis in chapters III and IV) is rather short. Some of my reservations about this part of the thesis are as follows:
• the author does not distinguish between the specific purposes of regression modelling (descriptive, inferential, predictive, causal); he is focused on the causal interpretations of the estimated partial regression coefficients, while not stressing assumptions and drawbacks of such a modelling properly;
sometimes there is some sort of (in my opinion very questionable) mix of the different modelling purposes, eg on page 38: ”We are in a position to say that individual variables have or haven´t impact on the dependent variable with t-statistic value”
• the author does not distinguish when discussing paired relationships (eg in sub-chapter III.2) and when the partial relationships (eg in all the regression models constructed/estimated in chapter IV)
• I am not entirely sure the author understands correctly all the statistical concepts he uses (eg the term
”random variable” is not used at all while results of statistical hypothesis tests are used on many occasions)
• the notation used mainly in the theoretical part of the thesis is sometimes inconsistent and confusing, some of the symbols not explained at all (eg ”t” in equation 6 on page 22, or in equation 9 on page 23)
• I strongly recommend that the author never omit the word ”statistical” when assessing the statistical significance (so as not to confuse ”statistical significance” with the ”real/true” significance)
For discussion during the defence of the thesis, I recommend the following questions/tasks:
1. explain what you mean by ”p-value recorded range from 0.29” on page 36?
2. How does actually the logarithmic transformation of some explanatory variables influence the results (page 37: ”Logarithmic transformation is used for the interpretation purpose because the dependent variable is in percentage points”)? It is important to stress that the logarithmic transformation was one of the crucial steps in the performed analysis, as everything in the preceeding text of the thesis (including theoretical background) was ”done” (discussed) without any such transformation.
3. What kind of findings do you mean in this sentence (page 42): ”The presence of multicollinearity is indicated by the findings.”?
4. What precautions you refer to in the sentence (page 44): ”Many precautions have been placed in place to ensure the validity of the empirical findings...”?
I consider the theoretical part of the master’s thesis to be difficult-to-read and I also have relatively strong doubts about some aspects of the analysis carried out in the practical part (chapters III and IV). On the other hand, huge efforts put by author into his thesis are obvious, the topic is interesting, the main objective being at least partly accomplished.
Therefore, even though I have some (even strong) reservations, I recommend the thesis for defence and suggest final mark 2. My condition for the candidate to successfully defend his diploma thesis with mark 2, nevertheless, is his informed reaction to the above questions/tasks.
Conclusion: The Master Thesis is recommended for the defence.
Suggested Grade: 2
Date: 17/05/2021 Ing. Karel Helman, Ph.D.
Opponent
