COUNTRY ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: GUIDELINES
After gathering all your data and other relevant information, you need to organize and analyze your data to write in comprehensive paper answering the following questions:
1. What are the trends in growth, inflation, unemployment, debt?
2. What are the current monetary and fiscal policies of the government? What social policies is the government pursuing?
3. What are the country's exchange rate, and trade policies?
4. What are the country's strengths, and what factors affect the stability of the country's economy?
5. What are the country's weaknesses? Economic, political, social, demographic.
6. What are the opportunities for growth in the country?
7. What are some of the threats to the economy? Economic, political, social, demographic.
Confirm your choice with your professor. The first step in a country economic analysis is to gather all the relevant data pertaining to the country:
Key Economic Indicators:
Demographics:
1. Population
2. Population per square kilometer
3. Average annual growth rate
4. Gender, Age,
5. Life expectancy
6. Fertility rate
7. Urban population
8. Crude birth and death rate
9. Literacy rate
Geography and natural resources:
1. Land
2. Arable land
3. Climate
4. Land under irrigation
5. Rivers
6. Access to lake, ocean, sea
7. Mineral, oil, and natural gas resources
8. Forrest
Capital Resources:
1. Capital stock
2. Human Capital
Economic data:
1. Real GDP
2. Real GDP per capita
3. Growth rate
4. Components of GDP: Consumption, Investment, Government expenditures, Net Exports
5. Origins of GDP: Manufacturing, Agriculture, Services, etc.
6. Unemployment rate,
7. Employment by sector
8. Monetary aggregate growth rate
9. Central bank lending rate
10. Lending real interest rate
11. Inflation rate
12. Exchange rate
13. Employment cost index
14. Labor productivity
15. National saving rate
Government Budget data:
1. Taxes, personal and corporate rates, value added taxes, etc.
2. Expenditures
3. Debt
4. Debt/GDP ratio
Trade and Balance of Payments data:
1. Exports of goods and services
2. Imports of goods and services
3. Trade to GDP ratio
4. Balance of Payments
5. Barriers to trade, tariffs, non-tariff barriers etc.
Comparative Indicators:
1. Income inequality Gini Coefficient
2. Government Effectiveness
3. Days to start business
4. Entrepreneurial Activity
5. Enabling Trade Index
6. Index of Economic Freedom rank
7. Human Development Index
Paper Requirements
- The paper should be double spaced, numbered, using Times New Roman 12 font.
- The paper must not exceed 30 pages exclusive of appendix.
- You may use either footnotes or endnotes with the appropriate format.
- You are to create your own exhibits, and graphs.
- All data, exhibits, maps, pictures, etc., should be placed in the appendix.
- The paper must have a title page (see below)
- The paper should have a table of contents
- The paper should have an executive summary