This seminar and paper course aims to evaluate key economic relations that were predicted to be important for the year 2019. The idea arises from a MacLean’s piece “The most important charts to watch in 2019”. There you will find 70 charts where economists both academic and private sector plotted data for variables that they thought were going to be critical in 2019. Were they right? The topics are numerous and varied so that students should find a suitable starting point to proceed with a deeper investigation.
The details of your study are individual and wide open but you must have clearance with me before proceeding. I expect students to have some empirical work in their paper beyond these graphs. This could be as simple as hypothesis tests on means or regression analysis that you studied in introductory econometrics. Students can use whatever software they are most familiar with (Stata or Excel, for example). I will be able to provide assistance in this regard via Stata or some other software. You will be responsible for getting electronic data and downloading into a program for analysis to support your paper.