ECON 3020 Spring 2009
Dr. Tufte
Homework 2
Due: Wednesday, January 21, at the start of class.
If possible, answer questions in the space provided.
1) Find a time series of real GDP for some other country (more years the better).
What country? What range of years? What frequency is the data?
2) Get it into Excel.
3) Take natural logs of your real GDP series.
4) Take differences of those natural logs to convert to (approximate) growth rates.
5) Produce some summary statistics on those growth rates: mean, median, standard
deviation, interquartile range.
Maximum
Minimum
Mean
Standard Deviation
Median
Interquartile Range
6) Print out a scatterplot of the natural logs against time, and circle any recessions
that are apparent.
7) Print out a scatterplot of the differenced natural logs against time, and circle any
recessions that are apparent.
