Financial Risk Management

If you’re looking to focus your degree on a subject that you’re sure to have covered in-depth in your degree, then as a core topic on many courses, financial risk management is a brilliant option. We’ve listed some topic suggestions below to assist you in generating ideas for your dissertation.

Example financial risk management dissertation topic 1:

A critical discussion of the use, for investment purposes, of standard deviation as a risk indicator

Risk is a critical component of investing, and within the field of investment analytical tools are used to guide investment decisions. Chief amongst these, historically, has been the use of standard deviation. This has been used because it can illustrate the volatility of a potential investment, and the correlated inherent risk associated with it, that can be correlated to its volatility. Using predominantly secondary sources this dissertation charts the development of the standard deviation over the last forty years and evaluates its on-going appropriateness as a mechanism by which to evaluate risk in the post credit crunch era.

Suggested initial topic reading:

• Konno, H. and Yamazaki, H. (1991) ‘Mean-absolute deviation portfolio optimization model and its applications to Tokyo Stock Market’, Management Science, Vol. 37(5), p. 519-531.
• Merton, R.C. (1973) ‘On the pricing of corporate debt: The risk structure of interest rates’, American Finance Association, December 1973, p. 1-35.
• Tobin, J. (1958) ‘Liquidity preference as behavior towards risk’, Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 25(1), pp. 1-26.