Homework answers / question archive / Aston University BS1112 – Statistics for Economics Statistical Report Assignment 20/21 1 Introduction Key skills required by economists are to be able to gather the correct data from a reliable source and load it into Excel to analyse it further

Aston University BS1112 – Statistics for Economics Statistical Report Assignment 20/21 1 Introduction Key skills required by economists are to be able to gather the correct data from a reliable source and load it into Excel to analyse it further

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Aston University BS1112 – Statistics for Economics Statistical Report Assignment 20/21

1 Introduction

Key skills required by economists are to be able to gather the correct data from a reliable source and load it into Excel to analyse it further. For example, data has to be summarised with descriptive statistics and analysed using di?erent statistical test procedures. For this Coursework, you will have to evidence all of these skills.

This assignment consists of two reports. The ?rst report involves extracting and analysing time-series data from the OECD webpage. It is worth 50% of the assignment mark. The second report involves analysing cross-sectional data from the Worldbank and Interna tional Monetary Fund (IMF). The second report will be worth 50% of the assignment mark.

Module Learning Outcomes Assessed:

• Show an understanding of descriptive and inferential statistics and be able to apply these techniques to the analysis and presentation of data.
• Apply statistical methods to basic economics scenarios using basic software for statistical analysis.
• Gather data from secondary sources and describe and analyse these data using statistical techniques.
• Communicate statistical concepts and results in a clear and precise manner

Assessment Weighting for the Module:

75 per cent of the overall module mark

Assessment Criteria:

See Assessment Matrix on Blackboard

2 Information about Submission:

The assignment should be uploaded onto Turnitin before the deadline speci?ed in the teaching. The submission deadline is 26/04/2021 at noon. A hard copy does not have to be submitted. You will need to produce your work in a single Word document. This will mean that any data and charts you produce in Excel will need to be imported (copied) into Word. I strongly recommend to upload a pdf version of your report onto Turnitin to ensure that all graphs and tables are correctly displayed. Furthermore, Turnitin only accepts pdf or word (.doc/.docx) documents. Any other formats cannot be opened and will receive a mark of 0.

3 Report Structure

The report should include the following sections:

• Title page
• Table of contents
• Report 1 (Time-series)
• Report 2 (Cross-section)

More information on the structure of Report 1 and 2 is provided below. As this coursework is a report, you are encouraged to use sub-headings. Font size and line spacing: Use 1.5 linespacing and a font size of 12 to facilitate reading, otherwise I will soon require stronger glasses!

Referencing: You have to use consistent referencing and add a reference section at the end (after the conclusion but before the appendix). A commonly used reference style is British Harvard Style. Aston University has an excellent guide on referencing: Click here

Word limit: 1,200 words (+/- 10%). Note that the word count does not include references, captions, equations, the appendix, or text within tables and charts. However, the title page, and the section headers do count. There is no page limit, only a word limit.

4 Report 1: Time-series analysis (50%)

You are asked to prepare a statistical brief about the development of the United Kingdom monthly unemployment rate for the period January 2015 to September 2020. You will have to compare the development in the UK with one other country. Do not choose the other country randomly - you will have to provide a justi?cation why you think that the comparison is of interest for a wider audience.

Report format and layout

Make sure that Report 1 contains the following sections:

• Introduction
• Main Body (Descriptive Statistics and Hypothesis Tests)
• Conclusion
• References
• Appendix

The work should be neat and tidy and easy to read. It is very important to use a consistent reference style for both in-text citations and the list of references displayed at the end of the report. Any data downloaded and any Excel commands used should go into the appendix. The appendix has to be presented neatly, so do not just copy and paste the data from the statistical webpage. The appendix is not a substitute for clear explanations of the main part of your work. There is no page limit for the appendix. You will have to complete the following tasks:

Task 1 - Data Collection

Download the following data from the OECD website and save it in an Excel spreadsheet:

1. ‘Monthly unemployment rate: all persons, s.a.’ for the UK for the period January 2015 to September 2020.
2. ‘Monthly unemployment rate: all persons, s.a.’ for another country of your choice for the period January 2015 to September 2020. You have to select a country for which data is available over the whole time period, without any gaps.

Note that s.a. stands for ‘seasonally adjusted’ which is very common for data that is a?ected by seasonal patterns, i.e. monthly data.

Add all the raw data into the appendix of Part 1. Do not forget to present the data in a user-friendly way. Also state precisely which data you have selected (Hint: Meta data information, which can be accessed through clicking on the ‘i’ next to the variable name.)

Task 2 - Calculations and descriptive statistics

• Calculate the monthly change in unemployment rate. The formula for changes is:

?URt = URt − URt−1

(1)

Add the column / row of unemployment rate changes to your raw dataset in the appendix.

• Using Excel, calculate and present numeric descriptive statistics (Number of Ob servations, Mean, Median, Max, Min, Std. Dev. and Skewness) for unemployment rate and changes in unemployment rate. The descriptive statistics table has to be presented in the main body of your report.

Task 3 - Graphical Methods

You have to produce three charts:

1. Create one chart that compares unemployment rates for the period January 2015 to September 2020 of the UK with the other country you have selected.
2. Create one chart that compares changes in unemployment rates for the period January 2015 to September 2020 of the UK with the other country you have selected.
3. Create one chart that compares mean unemployment rates of the UK and the other country that you have selected.

• You have to choose the chart type which you think is most appropriate. Charts have to be clearly labelled and presented. The charts have to be included in the main body of the report.

Task 4 - Hypothesis tests

Now undertake 2 hypothesis tests:

1. Using a one-sample hypothesis test, test the claim that the UK average unemploy- ment rate is 4.5% using a 5% signi?cance level.
2. Using a comparison of means test, test if the average unemployment rates in the UK and in the country of your choice are the same using a 5% signi?cance level.

Task 5 - Write a statistical brief

Use the charts, the numerical descriptive statistics and the hypothesis-test results to write a report on the development of the UK unemployment rates since January 2015. You have to describe your charts, numerical descriptive statistics as well as your hy pothesis tests and carefully explain your ?ndings. Good answers will be able to link the observations with economic theory. Include the following in each section of the report:

Introduction: Provide an outline of the topic of your report and highlight its relevance.

Also, justify the selection of the other country (word limit: 100).

10 marks

Main Body: This part contains your analysis and interpretation of your ?ndings. All charts, the descriptive statistics table and your hypothesis-test results have to be presented in this section. You have to state the test hypothesis and critical values for your tests. Do not use bullet points - this is a report not a power point presentation (word limit: 600).

70 marks

Conclusion: Conclude your report by summarising your ?ndings, provide an outlook for

further investigations and / or policy recommendations (word limit: 100).

10 marks

References: Add a reference section at the end of the report conforming to the (British)

Harvard-style referencing. Present here all the source you have used throughout this report.

Appendix: Include all the raw data in this section. Ensure that the data is well pre sented. Add here also any formulas and commands you have used to generate your statistics.

The overall formatting of the report, e.g. how the references and the data in the appendix are presented, is worth 10 marks.

5 Report 2: Cross-section analysis (50%)

This part is worth 50% of the overall assignment mark. You are asked to prepare a statistical brief about the relationship between GDP growth and the Debt to GDP ratio of 179 di?erent countries. You will use data for ONE speci?c year. The year you are going to use will depend on the ?rst letter of your surname (see look-up table below):

First letter of surname

Year of analysis

1. B, C
2. E, F
3. H, I
4. K, L
5. N, O
6. Q, R
7. T, U

5. W, X, Y, Z

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

For example, if your surname were Garratt, you would use data for the year 2010. If your surname were Cao, your relevant year would be 2008.

I have already downloaded the data for you from two di?erent sources, cleaned the data and merged it together to one dataset. I sourced the GDP growth data from Worldbank’s World Development Indicator Database1 and Debt to GDP ratio data from the Historical Public Debt Database of the IMF2. On Blackboard, you can ?nd the complete CW part2.xlsx panel dataset that contains data for the period 2008 to 2015.

Variable Variable descriptor

Country GDP Debt

Country name Country GDP growth (in percentage) Gross Government Debt to GDP ratio (in percentage)

Table : 1 

You have to modify this dataset. Keep only data that is relevant for your analysis. I.e. delete any GDP and Debt variables that are from di?erent years. For example, student Cao needs data only for the year 2008. He therefore drops the variables gGDP2009, . . . , gGDP2015 and Debt2009, . . . , Debt2015. Table 1 summaries the variables of the dataset.

1See https://databank.worldbank.org/source/world-development-indicators 2See https://data.imf.org/

Report 2 should have the following structure:

• Introduction
• Main Body (Descriptive Statistics and Hypothesis Tests)
• Conclusion
• References
• Appendix

Task 1 - Calculations and descriptive statistics

• Using Excel, calculate and present numeric descriptive statistics (Number of Ob servations, Mean, Median, Max, Min, Std. Dev. and Skewness) for GDP growth and Debt variables. The descriptive statistics table has to be presented in the main body of your report.

Task 2 - Graphical Methods

You have to produce one chart that consists of two elements:

1. Produce a scatter plot that illustrates the relationship between GDP growth and Debt to GDP ratio.
2. Add a best ?t line to the plot.

• The chart has to be clearly labelled and presented. The chart has to be included in the main body of the report. Task 3 - Creating new variables Derive two categorical variables from the dataset:
  1. Create a new variable called GrowthGroup. This new variable should have the following three categories:
     1. Contraction: GDP growth is smaller than 0% (i.e. negative growth).
     2. Moderate growth: GDP growth is between 0% and 5% (inclusive).
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     3. High growth: GDP growth is greater than 5%.
  2. Create a new variable called DebtGroup. This new variable should have the fol- lowing three categories:
     1. Low Debt: Debt to GDP ratio is smaller than 50%.
     2. Moderate Debt: Debt to GDP ratio is between 50% and 90% (inclusive).
     3. High Debt: Debt to GDP ratio is greater than 90%.
• Add the two new variables to your data set. Add the function you have used to generate the new variables to the Appendix.

Task 4 - Hypothesis tests

Now undertake 2 hypothesis tests

1. Using a χ2 test, show if there is a statistical relationship between the categori- cal GrowthGroup and DebtGroup variables using a 5% signi?cance level. Advice: You will have to generate a Pivot table which you can use as a foundation for undertaking your test.
2. Generate a correlation coe?cient between your numerical gGDP and Debt variables and test if the correlation coe?cient is statistically signi?cant at the 5% signi?cance level.

Task 5 - Write a statistical brief

Use the charts, the numerical descriptive statistics and the hypothesis-test results to write a report on the relationship between GDP growth and Debt ratio. You have to describe your charts, numerical descriptive statistics as well as your hypothesis tests and carefully explain your ?ndings. Good answers will be able to link the observations with economic theory. Include the following in each section of the report:

Introduction: Provide an outline of the topic of your report and highlight its relevance

(word limit: 100).

10 marks

Main Body: This part contains your analysis and interpretation of your ?ndings. All charts, the descriptive statistics table and your hypothesis test results have to be presented in this section. You have to state the test hypothesis and critical values for your tests. Include here also your tables that you have generated for undertaking the χ2 test. Do not use bullet points - this is a report not a power point presentation (word limit: 600).

70 marks

Conclusion: Conclude your report by summarising your ?ndings, provide an outlook for

further investigations and / or policy recommendations (word limit: 100).

10 marks

References: Add a reference section at the end of the report conforming to the (British) Harvard-style referencing. Present here all the source you have used throughout this report.

Appendix: Include all the raw data (incl. the new variables you have generated) in this section. Ensure that the data is well presented. Add here also any formulas and commands you have used to generate your statistics.

The overall formatting of the report, e.g. how the references and the data in the appendix are presented, is worth 10 marks.

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