Written Assignment #2
The requirements for this short writing assignment are the same as those for the first, except that for this one the topic is the Macroeconomy of another country. You may pick any country that is not your country of citizenship or current residence. All else equal I would recommend OECD member states as they will be the easiest to get data on, but if you have particular interest in a non-OECD state then by all means follow your interests.
The report should be primarily descriptive in nature, discussing the macroeconomic state and recent trends for the country utilizing the macroeconomic measures introduced in the second half of the course. The report will address the topics of GDP and its spending components; inflation; unemployment; credit market conditions (which means typical market interest rates and availability of credit to typical borrowers), and fiscal and monetary policy stance. Failure to address any of these elements will result in a lower score. In fact, the above list of topics is basically your outline.
The focus of this analysis is on what recent trends suggest about where the country is in the business cycle. It utilizes what is sometimes called “elevator analysis” (This went up, that went down, etc.) to present a picture of the country’s macroeconomic trajectory. This would be preparatory to making an assessment about the country’s near future, but that kind of projection is not the main purpose here.
Your submission should be no longer than 3 pages of text and it should be a challenge to get your report down to that limit. Your introduction should be no longer than a single sentence stating what good or service you will discuss. You must work independently. Your submission must be uploaded into the appropriate assignment by the due date.
You must use more than one source for information; thus, your bibliography should have at least 2 entries. The bibliography as well as any charts or tables you include should be on separate pages. Remember, ALL the text of your submission should be ENTIRELY in your own words. Often, humans feel they understand something but when the time comes to describe or explain it to another, they stumble. If one cannot explain something to another in their own words, then we can’t say they really understand it. The purpose of this assignment is not as much the research as it is forcing students to find that ability to explain basic economic ideas in their own words in a realistic context.
Assignment Expectations:
You should take informing the reader about DEMAND for the product from an economic perspective as your primary objective. Proper use of course concepts and vocabulary (when appropriate) will partially determine your score. Assume your audience has an understanding of economic theory of demand and elasticity at the level of ECON 704, but no particular knowledge of the firm or industry. The report should not waste effort explaining basic concepts; the focus is on application to the particular good or service.
This report partly assesses your ability to distinguish demand-side analysis from supply-side analysis. Discussing supply of the product will count against you.
This report is 20% of your grade. Budget your time accordingly.
The tone of the report should be strictly analytical and critical. All points of fact must be substantiated. The report should NOT sound like someone advertising the product or service. You are analyzing demand, not trying to sell something (I’m looking at you, iFans!). You should be able to quantify demand for the product to some extent; this means get some numbers.
The report should be well written, grammatically correct and free of spelling errors.
Report length should not exceed 3 pages of text with reasonable formatting. I expect it will be a challenge to get the report down to this small a size. Bibliography and graphics should be on separate pages and do not count towards the 3 pages of text. Graphics are not required.
You must attribute data and points of fact to your sources. It should be sufficient for this course to number your bibliographical entries, and associate points of fact to them by following with the entry number [X]. You should be using more than one source, so your bibliography should have at least 2 entries. Remember, the emphasis on this assignment is expressing economic concepts in the context of your good or service, not the research per se. The bibliographical entry itself should conform to accepted citation standards. APA or MLA citation standards are both acceptable. Papers without proper citation will simply not be accepted.
This report is *your* synthesis of information from source material. Everything you write should be solely in your own words. There should be no direct quotes or paraphrasing of any sort. Anything not clearly in your own words will be regarded as cheating. If you cannot figure out how to put it in your own words, you shouldn’t put it in the report, and I don’t mean just shuffling words around. I know this sounds paternalistic and perhaps slightly insulting, but I wouldn’t bother saying so unless experience showed me the necessity. The only exception is charts, tables or graphs which may be copied from source material with proper referencing. Student submissions are automatically assessed for originality by the Turnitin plagiarism detection service. Since you cannot use quotes or paraphrasing, I expect a very high level of originality. Turnitin returns a “similarity” score so a lower score is higher originality.
Phrasing note: Demand *of* electricity is what electricity demands of…whatever. The proper phrasing is demand *for* electricity.
If you are uncertain about any of the assignment details, it is far better to ask me than to guess.
