The Country Analyst Project
Every semester, students in my ECN211 (Macroeconomics) courses each get a research country assigned to them. As the class progresses, each student becomes the country expert, and builds a website detailing the various aspects of that country's economy as we go through the concepts in the course. By the end of the semester, each website contains:
COUNTRY ANALYST ASSIGNMENT: RESOURCES
COUNTRY ANALYST ASSIGNMENT: MACROECONOMIC GOALS
COUNTRY ANALYST ASSIGNMENT: FISCAL & MONETARY POLICIES
COUNTRY ANALYST ASSIGNMENT: INTERNATIONAL TRADE
COUNTRY ANALYST ASSIGNMENT: RESOURCES
- Information on the country's basic productive resources
- Breakdown of which resources represent a strength of the country, and which are weaknesses
- An example of a current resource change that is occurring in the research country
- A graph illustrating the impact of that resource change on the country's ability to produce
COUNTRY ANALYST ASSIGNMENT: MACROECONOMIC GOALS
- Information on the country's inflation, and how that compares with other countries
- Information on the country's unemployment, and how that compares with other countries
- Information on unemployment rates among different groups within the country
- Information on the GDP and the GDP per capita for the reasearch country, and how that compares with other countries
- Information on the country's growth rate, and how that compares with other countries
- Student's analysis of the country's greatest cause for concern, among these macroeconomic goals.
COUNTRY ANALYST ASSIGNMENT: FISCAL & MONETARY POLICIES
- An example of a current fiscal policy for the country
- A graph showing the effects of the policy
- An example of a current monetary policy for the country
- A graph showing the effects of the policy
COUNTRY ANALYST ASSIGNMENT: INTERNATIONAL TRADE
- Information on the country's main trading partners
- Information on the country's top imports and exports
- Information on any trade blocs the country is involved in
- Analysis of the pattern of trade for the country
- Information on the country's exchange rate