ECN 211 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.
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 Labor Statistics: http://www.bls.gov/
Bureau of Economic Analysis: http://www.bea.gov/
US Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov/
Federal Reserve Economic Data - FRED II: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/
1. Find quarterly data* for Real Gross Domestic Product in chained 2005 dollars for the years 2005 through 2009. List the data for GDP (Y), Personal consumption expenditures (C), Gross private domestic investment (I), Net exports of goods and services (NX), and 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)
4. 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)
You may want to use Excel for this assignment.
Another resource is the National Bur ea 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 2000 to 2005. Older data sources may not have yet been updated.