Objective. The objective of this project (for both EC4024 and EC6012 students) is to get you to work with a reasonably large data set, and to relate the information you get from this data to macroeconomic conditions in the world over the timeframe studied. Tutorials will be designed to support you in doing this.
Admin. The data set is here, in .csv format. A detailed description of the data is here. The data covers the period from 1983 to 2011.
Use the same template for submission to turnitin. Remember to anonymize it, and to use a cover sheet for the printed version. The project should be between 8-10 pages in length. Your implied reader is another member of your class, this project will be peer reviewed, as before, and the usual marks will be deducted for lateness, etc. Note the deadline for the project for your class:
- EC6012, April 8th at 12pm to turnitin.
- EC4024, April 6th at 10am to turnitin.
Guidelines. Start off the project by describing the data. Show plots of the movement of prices over time, show changes in volume, and show basic summary statistics like mean, median, and variance. Compute a histogram of the price changes. Is the histogram normally distributed? Why, or why not? How would you test for this?
Continue to manipulate the data as you see fit, describing any procedures you are doing thoroughly. I will allow a maximum 2 page data appendix for extra plots and fitting details to help readers understand what you are doing.
Then, taking episodes in macroeconomic history you are familiar with, and looking specifically at the oil industry, try to relate the movements in the AMEX-OIL data series. Reference your work appropriately.
Learning outcomes. I want to get a sense that you have understood how to manipulate this data to make some sense of it, but that you also have a sense for the historical episodes movements in the price of oil can capture. You should be able to understand both movements in the data, and the macroeconomic context for those movements, at the end of the project.