Economic
Paper, Order, or Assignment Requirements
The Czech Republic
This assignment is in three parts. The assignment should be around 2000 words in total (10% leeway), all charts, diagrams and table should be your own and clearly labelled and everything taken from other sources must be referenced in line with the University policy (see on-line referencing handbook for full details).
Question 1
Compare the growth of money and nominal GDP for your country for the last 10 years. How does this compare with what has happened in the United States? You should discuss what you find in relation to the quantity theory of money and you should re-base the series so that you can visually compare the evolution of the data. You get source the money data from the World Bank and the GDP data from the IMF World Economic Outlook.
Criteria Weight Notes
Source data 20% Poor: Lack of data
Good: Reliable and referenced
Understand theory 40% Poor: Confusion and mistakes
Good: Understanding in own words
Excellent: Critical use of theory to explain what is seen in the data. Firm conclusions
Re-base the data 20% Poor: No re-basing or mistakes are made
Good: Rebased and evidence of understanding
Excellent: Series re-based and other comparisons made.
Present evidence 20% Poor: Sloppy, mistakes, lack of care.
Good: Well-presented and clear.
Excellent: Innovative, creative and interesting.
Question 2
How well does the Phillips Curve help you to understand the evolution of unemployment and inflation in your country in the last 15 years? You response should include an overview of the theory, ordinary least squares regression of unemployment and inflation, some comments on the R2, the t-statistic and the residuals as well as some possible explanations if the actual performance of these two variables is not consistent with the theory. You can get the unemployment and inflation data from the IMF World Economic Outlook.
Criteria Weight Notes
Source data 10% Poor: Lack of data
Good: Reliable and referenced
Understand theory 40% Poor: Confusion and mistakes
Good: Understanding in own words
Excellent: Critical use of theory to explain what is seen in the data. Firm conclusions.
Regression analysis 40% Poor: No regression. Mistakes and lack of understanding
Good: Regression carried out and interpreted
Excellent: Regression carried out, clear comments made on the diagnostics.
Present evidence 10% Poor: Sloppy, mistakes, lack of care.
Good: Well-presented and clear.
Excellent: Innovative, creative and interesting.
Question 3
Find data on the distribution of income by quintile for your country and use this to calculate the gini coefficient for two points in time: 1980 (or thereabouts) and 2010 (or thereabouts).
Evaluate what has happened to the distribution of income in your chosen country over this period. For example, what are the possible causes? How do the experiences of your chosen country compare to those of other (similar) countries? What reasons might there be for national differences? And so on.
A useful source of the necessary quintile data is the UNU-WIDER World Income Inequality Database (WIID v.3) a copy of which is available to download from the assessment folder on StudentCentral.
A useful guide on how to calculate the gini coefficient from quintile data can also be found in the same place.
