ECON333: Economic Development and Institutions

INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT
Due date & time:
September 10, 2023 at 23:59pm

Worth 5% of your overall assessment

1 General Information
The assignment is due at 23:59pm on Sunday September 10. It is worth 5 percent
of your final grade. You should write and submit your assignment answers independently,
although discussions among your classmates are allowed. Please write your name and
student ID on the cover page of your assignment. To facilitate grading and minimize
any confusion due to unclear handwriting, please type your answers and submit the
document file to Blackboard drop box. It is important to save and insert the
plotted graphs in your assignment document.
Late submissions will be penalized with one mark deduction for each day late
unless you have made prior arrangements with Dr. Hao Jia.
This assignment involves working with the data from the following websites:

ˆ https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?view=chart

ˆ http://www.gapminder.org/world/

To receive full marks you must show clear development and expression of ideas in
clear paragraphs in addition to the correct answers. You may use dot-points or outlines
to develop your thinking, but then re-write them into proper sentences and paragraphs.
Please use 12pt sized font and double-space format. You must cite all ideas that are
not your own. You should use the Harvard (name-date) referencing style, to cite any
source you use – perhaps to confirm your results with the text. It means that, rather
than placing a reference in a footnote, you should provide reference of the work inside
the text with the name of the author and the date of publication of the work cited.
Example:

Far from being the inventor of the idea of perfect competition, Adam Smith
was in fact among the last representative of economists who saw competition
as a dynamic process of rivalry (McNulty 1967).

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This means you are citing a 1967 article authored by someone called McNulty as the
source of the idea in the sentence. You would then list that article in a list of references
at the end of your paper:

ˆ McNulty, Paul J. 1967. “A Note on the History of Perfect Competition,” Journal

There are many ways to run the details of a name-date style. You should pick up only
one style and use it consistently. Please see the Harvard Format Citation Guide at
https://www.mendeley.com/guides/harvard-citation-guide/. Do not just quote
chunks of the text – you must express your answer in your own words.
You may study with other students, discuss the assignments with whomever you
wish and even outline answers with others. However, you must write this assignment
on your own. Software will check each assignment for plagiarism and collusion, which
are explained in our Course Outline. Severe disciplinary measures could be taken as
explained in the Course Outline. I realize that some sentences will occur in different
students’ work because there are few ways to say them, e.g., “Price decreased from P1
to P2 .” However there should be few such matches between any two assignments, and
even the process of resolving the case of accidentally matching someone else’s work can
be time-consuming and upsetting. So, please do your own work. It is preparation for
the exam.

2 Questions
1. Download the GDP per capita, PPP (constant 2017 international $) data from
World Bank’s website and open it in an Excel spreadsheet. Focus on the data for
the four countries, United Arab Emirates (ARE), Bahrain (BHR), Oman (OMN),
and Saudi Arabia (SAU), from year 1990 to 2022, and answer the following ques-
tions in no more than 400 words.

(a) Plot the GDP per capita data in a line chart for the four countries, with year
and GDP per capita on the horizontal and vertical axes, respectively. You
can either plot all four countries in one chart or plot each country in different
chart.
(b) Identify the trend of each country’s GDP per capita (e.g., increasing, decreas-
ing, or remaining the same over time). Briefly explain what do you think
would be the main reason(s) caused the different develop patterns across these
four countries.
(c) Comment on the major fluctuation(s) in UAE’s GDP per capita over the
period 1990-2022. State briefly what you think is the most likely reason
(event) for the observed fluctuation(s).

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 Note: When you open the data set downloaded from the World Bank website, the
annual GDP per capita for the each country are listed in rows. You may want to
rearranged them in rows. You can use the “Transpose”feature to achieve this goal.
First, select the range of data you want to rearrange, including any row or col-
umn labels, and “Copy”the range (CONTROL+C). Select the first cell where you
want to paste the data, right-click the mouse and then click on “Paste Special.”In
the pop-up window check the “Transpose”check box and finally click on “OK”to
complete the process. Please note that before your paste the data, pick a spot in
the worksheet that has enough room for the new data. The data you copied will
overwrite any data that’s already there.

2. Use the Gapminder World graphical interface to plot the following two graphs of
development data, analyze them and provide comments within 200 words per
graph. For each graph:

(a) make sure that you know the precise meaning of the plotted variables (no
need to write them down),
(b) outline the major patterns (e.g., positive, negative, or no association between
the plotted variables, etc.) from the following perspectives:
i. in the scatterplot across countries;
ii. in the variables’ change over time;
iii. comment on a particular country or group of countries which you be-
lieve deserve special attention or something else on the plot that you find
striking or interesting,
(c) state briefly what you think is the likely reason(s) for the observed pattern.
(d) provide a forecast (with brief argumentation) of how the graph would look
like 20 years from now.

Instructions:
The exact variable names from the Gapminder website are given below. Put the
first stated variable on the vertical axis and the second variable (after the “vs.”) on
the horizontal axis. To see the joint change over time in the plotted variables over
time use the slider below the graph (or, the “Play” button) as shown in tutorials.
Graph 1. Babies per woman (total fertility) vs. Income per person (GNI/capita,
constant 2010 US$) from 1960 to 2021.
Note: To switch to the Babies per woman variable click on the vertical axis and
select the variable from the very top of the list. Use the “movie”slider below the
plot to see how the pattern evolves over the years 1960 to 2021. To switch to
the Income per person (GNI/capita) variable, click on the horizontal axis, go to
“Economy,”then “Incomes & growth.”Select the variable from the list.

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 Graph 2. Gini coefficient vs. GDP/capita (US$, inflation-adjusted) during 1960
and 2021 for China and India only.
Note: To switch to the Gini coefficient variable by clicking on the vertical axis
and going to “Economy,”then “Inequality,”then select from the list. To switch to
the GDP/capita (US$, inflation-adjusted) variable click on the horizontal axis and
going to “Economy,”then “Incomes & growth,”then select from the list. Select
China and India from the country list on the right. Make sure the “trails”box is
clicked. Select 1960 and hit the Play button.

3 Requirements:
ˆ Make sure that you are using correct referencing.

ˆ Read through your work prior to submission, checking your spelling and grammar.

ˆ All content is to be electronically generated.

ˆ No more than 800 words in total excluding the tables, diagrams, and references.

-End of Assignment-