Thesis subjects Business Economics

It would be great if you come up with a subject yourself! You can start with a broad topic and discuss your ideas with one of the staff members.

the list with available BSc topics

An important step in starting a thesis is the selection of a topic. You can either develop your own topic (in discussion with one of the BEC staff members) or select an available topic from the BEC topics list.

For further inspiration:

It is possible to do a thesis supervised by two chair groups. This can be done for a thesis Business Economics but also for others, for example a thesis Animal Nutrition or at thesis Veterinary Epidemiology. In this case the economic part will be supervised by one of our staff members. Ask about the possibilities!

For further information on thesis topics please contact the thesis coordinator Monique.Mourits@wur.nl

General examples of thesis subjects per theme

Economics of Agribusiness and Supply Chains

  • Innovation in European food processing
  • Retailer - supplier competition and cooperation in the European food supply chain
  • Private label - Industrial brand competition
  • Cost-effectiveness of master plan strategies for food security
  • Profitability of renewable energy
  • Increasing oil prices: what is the impact on the price of our food?
  • What is commercial businesses' long-term vision on sustainability?
  • The price of goodwill in the food and agribusiness
  • Performance measurement of commercial businesses and public agencies 
  • Performance of international food chains

Farm management

  • Sustainability choices of farmers when (re)building new farms
  • Economic evaluation of heifer calves selection moment
  • Horse business economics and management
  • Pet boarding kennel (dierenpension) business economics and management
  • Development of a model to forecast the next year economic results of dairy farms in different regions of the world
  • What are the new risks for farmers in a changing risk environment?
  • Designing an optimal payment system for sugar beet producers
  • Innovation and performance of farms
  • Risk management at farms

Economics of Animal Health and Plant Health

  • Cost-effectivity of animal welfare improvements within the broiler production chain
  • Recurrend costs of keeping and caring for horses
  • Economics of the veterinary practise: developing benchmarks
  • The value of herd health management programs for the dairy farmer
  • The economic consequences of improving young stock management
  • Risk of culling cattle: differences between farms with and without youngstock raising
  • Economic aspects of prevention, monitoring and control of regulated animal diseases in the Netherlands
  • Optimal use of on-line somatic cell count sensors to detect clinical mastitis in automatic milking systems
  • Development of a tool to calculate the cost-price of services in Dutch veterinary practices
  • Economic evaluation of serological tests to diagnose Brucellosis in cattle
  • Insurability and risk management of animal health risks and food safety risks in the veal calf sector
  • Economic evaluation of programs to reduce Phytophthora infection in potatoes
  • Economic consequences of the new pesticide policy

Economics of Food Safety

  • Economic evaluation of a food safety incident, e.g. the dioxin crises in organic feed production.
  • Economic and statistical optimalisation of monitoring and inspection in large batches of food and feed ingredients 
  • Cost-benefit analysis of the application of a predictive model for mycotoxins in grains by food safety authorities and/or feed and food industry
  • Food safety decision making in a food business
  • Antibiotic resistance: the economics of antibiotic treatment in different farming systems  
  • Costs and benefits of HACCP in the primary production
  • Quantifying the image damage due to a Food Safety issue