What was the impact of COVID (decline and recovery) in GDP? How it compares to US?

The assignment would require you to retrieve historical information, as far back as possible. This can be done either

using any of the data sources provided in Brightspace or alternative sources you may find (e.g. National Statistical

Agencies).

Consider the following macroeconomic variables for your Group’s country and for United States:

 Nominal and Real Gross Domestic Product

 Real Exports and Real Imports

 Inflation (CPI, core CPI, and GDP Deflator)

 Unemployment Rate

 Short-term interest rate (Central Bank’s policy rate or 3-month Treasury Bill rate)

 Long-term interest rate (~10-year Treasury Bond rate)

 Exchange Rate vis-à-vis US Dollar

 Debt (% of GDP)

 Budget Deficit (% of GDP)

 Current Account (% of GDP)

 Credit Rating (any Credit Agency will do).

Prepare a brief report where you will need to discuss/address at least the following:

1. Average growth rates of the economy over different periods of time and how they compare

to the US. Identify the recession periods.

2. What was the impact of COVID (decline and recovery) in GDP? How it compares to US?
3. What was the inflation profile over time?
4. How the different inflation measures compare to each other?
5. How different was the Unemployment Rate compared to the US? Any thoughts on the

underlying cause for any findings?

6. What are the interest rate differentials versus the United States? How do they vary over

time? Plot the interest rate differential and the Exchange rate in the same graph. What do

you observe?

7. Discuss the evolution of the Budget Deficit, Current Account Deficit and Credit Rating of

the country over time.

8. Have you find anything else of interest in your data perusal?

Notes:

 Data should be of quarterly frequency, average.

 Comparisons can be of qualitative and quantitative nature.

 A combination of graphs and bullet points is sufficient.