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ECON1020
Country Report
Assessment Task Country Report
Group or Individual Individual
Weighting 35% (100 marks reweighted to 35%)
Word Limit 1100 100 words
DUE DATE 1 pm, 21/12/2022 (Wednesday) (online submission)
Marking Guide (Rubric) Blackboard > Assessment > Country Report > Rubric
Submission Turnitin via course BB site (see page 5 for further guidance).
File type allowed: doc, docx, or pdf
The submission title of your report must be of the following format:
Country First Name Surname, e.g., Australia Jamie Cross
Academic Integrity UQ has strict rules against cheating, including “colluding with other
students on individual assessment items”. You must read and be
familiar with these rules (PPL 3.60.04 Student Integrity and
Misconduct).
Acknowledgement
We would like to acknowledge the contribution
of Jackie Chin, Strategist, Dynamic Asset
Allocation at Future Fund, BEcon (Hons) 2005,
in the development of this report assignment.
CONTEXT
A multinational company is considering making an investment in Australia but is also open to the
idea of investing in New Zealand. If the macroeconomic environment of Australia is deemed
favourable, then the company will proceed to look for specific investment projects. However, for
commercial confidentiality reasons, you are not provided with any information regarding the
potential investment project(s).
ASSIGNMENT TASK
As independent an economic consultant, you are hired by a company to:
a) Provide a macroeconomic profile for Australian economy; and
b) Benchmark Australia’s macroeconomic performance against New Zealand’s
macroeconomy as an alternative investment destination.
In doing so, you will deliver a structured Country Report, which includes up to three (3) figures
(diagrams, graphs) or tables in total. Notes:
You can use a mixture of figures and tables provided the total number is no more than 3.
You can include more than one variable in a figure or table.
As an independent consultant, you must produce your own figures or tables. This means
that you cannot cut and paste from some sources. You must keep a copy of your data file
as you could be asked to provide it as evidence.
As an independent consultant, you should produce an original economic analysis. You can
use direct quotes provided that the total number of quoted words sums to 20 words or less
in the whole of the report. Any direct quote must be properly referenced.
REPORT STRUCTURE
The report must consist of the following three sections (word limits are also provided).
1. Macroeconomic Performance (~600 words)
a. Assess the macroeconomic performance of Australia based on the three key
macroeconomic indicators: GDP, inflation, and unemployment, for the years 2010-2019.
b. Explain how these key macroeconomic indicators are related to each other using theories
and concepts covered in the course.
c. Explain what factors, including economic policies, are driving these indicators.
2. Benchmarking (~500 words)
a. Discuss some potential reasons and limitations for why New Zealand might be a suitable
alternative investment location to Australia.
b. How does Australia’s macroeconomy perform compared to New Zealand’s? Explain the
reasons for any differences.
c. Which country will be a more preferred investment destination and why?
3. References
References and citations must be in the APA 7th style.
TIPS
Formatting Tips:
To avoid missing parts of the report we suggest that you use the report template on Blackboard
> Assessment > Country Report > Report Template.
The recommended formats are:
• Font type: Arial
• Font size: 11
• Line space: 1.15
• 1100 100 words
You must include the cover sheet (in the template) in your submission. Do not write your
answer on the cover page.
The wordcount does not include:
• the coversheet
• the bibliography
• section headings
• figures
• figure headings
• short notes underneath figures (e.g., Source: WDI, 2021).
The wordcount includes in-text citations.
General Tips:
✓ Read the mistakes students tend to make: Blackboard > Assessment > Country Report >
Past Common Feedback.
✓ The suggested word limits are a guide only. You can write more or less, but your total
wordcount for the report must be within 1100 100 words.
✓ There is no need to define concepts of commonly used macroeconomic indicators (e.g.,
‘GDP stands for gross domestic product and is a measurement of the total goods and
services produced in a country in a year’).
✓ You may discuss macroeconomic indicators that are not covered in Topics 1-4.
Refencing Tips:
✓ Introduction to APA referencing: https://uq.h5p.com/content/1291356672078999049
✓ Having more in-text citations and references will reduce the number of words for the main
body, while having too few in-text citations and references will reduce the credibility of the
report. Therefore, you need to balance the two.
✓ Use a variety of sources (rather than just one or two) and use sources that are credible, e.g.,
WDI indicators by the World Bank, official government websites and academic journals.
✓ Consult UQ’s referencing style guide for the APA 7th styles.
✓ You must reference sources that you use for your text, graphs or tables.
✓ You must reference even when you have paraphrased the original content.
✓ You can refer to non-English material sources if no equivalent English sources are available,
but you should keep such sources to a minimum.
✓ If you refer to non-English material sources, you need to provide the English translated
references with a note at the end, e.g., “(original in German)”. The grader will consider the
availability of English material sources for your country to ensure fairness in marking.
✓ You can use the EndNote program (downloadable from UQ library) to manage your
references instead of doing it manually. Microsoft Word also has a Reference function.
✓ The UQ APA 7th style guide does not provide an explicit example of how to cite the World
Development Indicators. You can use the following format:
DATA REQUIREMENTS
Your primary data sources should be:
a. National agencies, e.g., Statistical Bureau, Treasury, Central Bank; or
b. Multinational agencies, e.g., the World Bank, the United Nations, the International Monetary
Fund, the European Central Bank, the Bank for International Settlements, Eurostat.
Data from secondary sources can still be used as a supplement only if those data are not available
from any primary sources. Using non-primary data can lead to loss of marks when primary
source data is available for your country.
The World Bank’s World Development Indicators (WDI) database contains most of the national
data collected by national and multinational agencies and can be used as a primary data source.
Here are some YouTube tutorials on how to extra data from the WDI:
TIPS:
✓ WDI data are on annual basis. If you want to use monthly or quarterly data, you need to
access statistics directly from your country’s statistical bureau.
✓ Do not falsely claim that certain data are not readily available from a primary source
without doing your due diligence. For most data at the national level (e.g., GDP,
unemployment rate), only national or multinational agencies have the capacity to collect
those data. Therefore, it is extremely unlikely that they are available from a secondary
source but not from a primary source.
✓ If you use data from a source (e.g., a report) that indicates that it drew the data from a
government statistical bureau, the data is considered to have come from a secondary
source, not a primary source. However, if you go to the government statistical bureau and
extract the same data (and verify what you read is indeed accurate), then it is considered
to have come from a primary source.
SUBMITTING YOUR COUNTRY REPORT
o Check if you tick all the items on the submission checklist provided on Blackboard >
Assessment > Country Report > Submission Checklist. (Note: you do not need to
submit the checklist.)
o Your report must be submitted through Turnitin on Blackboard to check for plagiarism.
While most instances of plagiarism are unintentional, any form of plagiarism (intentional
or unintentional) will be revealed in the originality report.
o From the originality report, the marker will check whether any part of your report is
considered as having potentially plagiarised from other sources, rather than just relying
on the similarity index value. Therefore, you are expected to carefully check the
originality report before your final submission. (Also see the Penalty section above.)
o You can resubmit your report unlimited times before the due date. However, after three
resubmissions, the similarity report is generated after 24 hours.
o Turnitin will not provide you a confirmation email after successful submission. However,
you can download a digital receipt as proof of submission. UQ Library provides a
guide on how to submit Turnitin assignment, get a digital receipt, and view Similarity
Report and marks.
o The time of submission is based on the time your report was successfully uploaded on
Turnitin as recorded by Turnitin, not the time you tried to upload it.
o Many students fail to meet the deadline because they have internet connection problems
on their side, but they mistake it as an IT problem of UQ. If UQ has any internet
connection problems, there will be a record of it.
o The only way to guarantee not missing the deadline is to submit your report well before
the deadline.
Penalty Rates
LATE SUBMISSION:
● When an extension has not been previously approved, a penalty of 10 marks (out of 100)
will be deducted for every 24-hour block up to 7 calendar days, at which point any
submission will not receive any marks. That is:
o 10 marks penalty if submitted within 24 hours after the deadline
o 20 marks penalty if submitted between 24 to 48 hours after the deadline
o …
o 60 marks penalty if submitted between 120 to 144 hours after the deadline
o 70 marks penalty if submitted between 144 to 168 hours after the deadline
o After 168 hours, a zero mark will be given.
HIGH TURNITIN SIMILARITY INDEX VALUE:
● 8-10: up to 5 marks (out of 100) may be deducted
● For every 5-points over 10, another 10 marks (out of 100) may be deducted.
● E.g. 11-15: 15 marks; 16-20: 25 marks; 21-25: 35 marks etc.
Besides mark deduction, cases of alleged plagiarism will be reported to the School’s Integrity
Officer for investigation following the University’s policy.
Similarity index values change slightly over time as Turnitin continuously add new materials into
its database, e.g., as more students have submitted their assignments. The best strategy is to
keep your similarity index value sufficiently low, e.g., below 5, so that even though it goes up a
little bit after submission it will not exceed 7.
You are given a buffer of 7 similarity index value to cover some unavoidable similarity.
Anything on the template and references are already excluded from the index.
Turnitin will ignore a small amount of unavoidable similarity (e.g., commonly used terms).
Turnitin will not include references in its similar score calculation.
COPYING FIGURES:
● For each copied figure or table: 10 marks (out of 100) will be deducted.
● The penalty remains the same even if references are provided for the copied figures.
Besides mark deduction, cases of alleged plagiarism will be reported to the School’s Integrity
Officer for investigation following the University’s policy.
EXTRA FIGURES:
● For each extra figure or tables over the limit of 3: 10 marks (out of 100) will be deducted.
WRONG COUNTRY: 15 marks (out of 100) will be deducted.
OMITTING THE COVER SHEET:
● Omitting the whole cover sheet: 10 marks (out of 100) will be deducted
● Omitting some parts of the cover sheet: 5 marks (out of 100) will be deducted.
EXCEEDING THE WORDCOUNT LIMIT (1100 100):
● 5 marks for every 50 words over 1200. E.g., 5 marks for 1208; 10 marks for 1275 etc.
● No penalty for less than 1000 words, but may have insufficient content.
WRONG SUBMISSION TITLE STRUCTURE: 5 marks (out of 100) will be deducted.
• Please note that the submission title is not the same as the file name.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQs)
QUESTIONS ANSWERS
Why do we need to do this
assignment?
To excel in the workplace, professional economists need
to be able to:
● analyse problems;
● identify potential solutions and their limitations;
● find, extract and organise good quality and
relevant data; and
● present findings precisely and concisely.
This assignment aims to provide you with an opportunity to
develop these skills.
Why can’t I use more than three
figures?
Consultant reports are typically very concise so that (busy)
readers can focus on the most relevant information. As the
number of figures is limited to no more than three, you
need to think carefully about where to use them to
maximise the overall impact of the report.
Why can’t I cut and paste figures
from other sources?
This is part of real-world training on how to extract and
organise data, and present findings.
If I want to include a graph, how
should I do this?
Insert your graph as an image, rather than as an Excel
object, in your report.
How should I include a diagram
(e.g., an AD-AS model) in my
report?
A simple way to do so is to draw it in PowerPoint, copy it,
and then paste it as an image in your report.
How should I cite any data
source used for a figure?
Include the data source below each figure. For example:
“Source: World Bank (2020)”.
Why are there so many
penalties?
In the real world, a submitted document that does not
follow the instructions could be rejected entirely.
Why only limited direct quotes
are allowed?
Students often misuse direct quotes as a way to avoid
paraphrasing.
Can I see some samples? No. Once people have seen some samples, they naturally
want to copy them rather than thinking independently.
However, in the tutorial, we will provide a ‘bad example’ to
show you what could go wrong. Also see the Past
Common Feedback on Blackboard.
How do I know if I do the
paraphrasing and referencing
correctly?
In the tutorials, we will provide exercises on how to do
referencing and paraphrasing, respectively.