Research Paper

Research Paper: The Inflation Crisis and Long-run Economic Growth in India

The goal of this assignment is to gather and analyze data, then develop a conclusion and recommendation. This analysis may assist the upper management for making a decision.  From the data collection, students will create data tables and charts/graphs using a spreadsheet, and draw conclusions based on your collected data and related literature reviews.

1. Abstract or executive summary
2. Introduction (e.g. motivation for the selected variables, sources of the data, the relationship between variables)
3. Indicators of selected variables 
4. Brief information on each variable and its relationship
5. Analyzing Data (e.g. data tables, graphs/charts)
6. Conclusions
7. A list of References
To complete this research paper, these steps can be applied into your work:

Step 1: students will select at least 2 variables for data analysis. For example, 
• Inflation and unemployment rate
• Interest rate and inflation and GDP (gross domestic product)
• Stock values of Ford and Toyota  and Kia( US and foreigners’ automobiles)
• Stock values of Wal-Mart and Sam’s (retail vs wholesale)
• El Nino and number of storms in the US
• Inflation and economic growth on a specific country (e.g. US, India, China, Mexico,…)
• Others

Step 2: students will gather actual data, at least 30 records for each variable, for example stock market values in monthly for 3 years (12×3 = 36 records), 2008-2010, Consumer price index or unemployment rate or in quarterly for 9 years (4×9 = 36 records), 2001-2009.  These are some suggested data sources:
Industrial share prices, Consumer Prices, Unemployment rate, interest rate, US imports, US exports,…
International Monetary fund (IMF), data and statistics at  
http://www.imf.org/external/data.htm

& Historical Data – Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System at  
http://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/releases/statisticsdata.htm

Stock market values, from Google ( 
http://www.google.com/finance
 ), Yahoo! ( 
http://finance.yahoo.com/
 )

Step 3: Plot the graph to see the trend and the relationship between these variables. You are encouraged to use any statistical tools or knowledge learned from this program to analyze your data.

Step 4:  Explain what this data implies about the relation between these variables (V).  Can one infer that V1 has an impact on V2 or vice versa? Or there is no relation (or little relation) between these variables. 

Step 5: Draw conclusion in the face of possibly ambiguous data (e.g. higher unemployment but lower inflation), and data are used explicitly to support the conclusion.