ECO 2013 Assignment 1
Graphing GDP
25 points
Read through the entire assignment before you begin.
There are two objectives for this assignment. The first is
to demonstrate that you can find economic data for the US economy. The second
is to demonstrate that you can graph the data in such a manner that we can tell
something from the graph. Both of these are things that economists do all the
time.
The US government collects massive amounts of data on the
economy. Most of it is available on the internet. Some of the major sites
include:
Bureau of Economic Analysis: http://www.bea.gov/
Federal Reserve Economic Data – FRED II:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/
Bureau of Labor Statistics: http://www.bls.gov/
US Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov/
1. Find quarterly data* for Real Gross Domestic Product and
its major components in chained 2009 dollars for the years 2007 through 2011.
List the data for Real GDP (Y), Real Personal consumption expenditures (C),
Real Gross private domestic investment (I), Real Net exports of goods and
services (NX), and Real Government consumption expenditures and gross investment
(G). (8 points)
2. Graph the data. (6 points)
3. Identify the last recession on the graph. (2 points)
(Note that a recession has both a starting date and an ending date. If you
can’t annotate it on the graph, give me the dates in your submission text)
4. Go look around at the data available at the sites listed
above. Graph any other government collected economic data for the last 5 years
that is of interest to you. (5 points) Include your data source. (4 points) (If
it is annual data, include at least 10 years. For quarterly or monthly data, 5
years is fine.)
You may want to use Excel for this assignment. Some of the
data sites will graph the data for you if you can figure out how – they are all
different. (All of the data sources change at seemingly random intervals.)
You may submit multiple files. I generally am unable to open
certain spreadsheet files from Apple software. Excel on Apple works fine but
other things are iffy. Please use something else. For graphics files, JPEG and
PNG work well. D2L (MyCourses) tends to hang trying to display SVG files. Avoid
those.
Another resource is the National Bureau of Economic
Research: http://www.nber.org/ It is the organization that dates the business
cycle for the US.
* Note: we typically use quarterly data that is seasonally
adjusted and reported at annual rates. These are often designated SAAR. All of
the sites listed report the data in that manner. Also note that the base year
was recently changed from 2005 to 2009. Older data sources may not have yet
been updated.
Attachments
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