I discourage "book report" type projects, but well-written accounts of research literature are appropriate, such as Infant mortality rate (Jennifer Cheng and Wing Tam, 2006) written in the style of the Ropeik-Gray Risk book; and Risk measurement and management: an in-depth look at how Wall Street professionals deal with market risk (Kwon Joon Chang and Christopher Lin and Tianqi Zhu, 2008) provides a timely tutorial on "value at risk".
Repeating experiments dealing with the psychology of probability is fun: Risk aversion in games of chance (Rose Cendak and Rebecca Graff, 2006) shows how people can calculate probabilities rationally while simultaneously believing in lucky/unlucky streaks.
Prediction market prices as martingales: theory and analysis (David Klein, 2008) analyses one of the course's basic examples.
Sports data provides an endless range of possible projects. Strategies in fantasy NBA basketball (Tommy Lu and Angela Zhang, 2006) devise improved player-ranking schemes for managers of fantasy basketball to plan advantageous drafts and trades; they modestly didn't say that they won their league competition. In an honors thesis project parallel to the course, A regression model using common baseball statistics to project offensive and defensive efficiency (Dennis Moy, 2006) studies improved ways of using runs scored and runs allowed to predict winning percentages. Easier schedules and increasing home field advantage in college football (Jeffrey Gonda, 2008) investigates why the average home field advantage has increased from 4 to 7 points over the last 30 years. Drafting NFL Wide Receivers: Hit or Miss? (Amrit Dhar 2011) studies why there is a gap between how NFL teams value wide receivers in the draft and how well they perform in the NFL. Statistical analysis of suspected officiating improprieties in two quite different settings and with different motivations (financial, nationalistic) is provided by Bias in the 2008 Beijing Olympics Gymnastics (Andrew Duong, 2008) and NBA Conspiracy Theory (Irvin Liu, 2008), each repeating previous published analyses in different years.
Stock market behavior is another focus of the course. Time-variant CAPM: learning about factor loading (Jiho Han, 2006) describes a variant of recent sophisticated models and assesses its realism.
Predicting box office success: do critical reviews really matter (Alec Kennedy, 2008) examines the connection, highlighting a difference between limited release and wide release movies.
Evaluating the Accuracy of Public Opinion Polls with California Propositions (Erika Oblea, 2011) compares their accuracy to the extent of internet coverage. Predicting Stock Market Fluctuations from Twitter (Sang Chung and Sandy Liu, 2011) may not help with actual prediction but studies the correlation between stock fluctuations and twitter activity. Insurance Probability: Comparison and Analysis of Consumer Psychology and Pricing Strategy in U.S. and China (Wenjun Dong, Wanyue Zhang and Yan Dai, 2011) seeks to assess the variables affecting premiums in the two countries. Theft Insurance in Berkeley (Christina Yang and Amy Zhang, 2011) consider whether Berkeley students' willingness to pay insurance against property loss could generate profit opportunities for insurers.