Purpose

One of the main jobs of an economist is to convey ideas through analytical writing. The Individual Writing Assignment (IWA) is designed to build your skills in this area, following on from the practice you have already had through Term 1 through Tutorial assignments and Homeworks.

Task

To complete this assessment, you are required to choose only ONE of the 5 questions listed on the next two pages and answer them as per the instructions below:

•    Use no more than 500 words. The word count includes footnotes and tables with paragraph-like text in them. The word count excludes your bibliography/references including in-text citations, numeric tables or charts and their titles and the appendix where your work on the empirical project must be included. If your submission exceeds the 500-word limit, over-length penalties will apply.

•   You must use at least TWO scholarly articles as a basis for your discussion. To satisfy this requirement, the two articles cited must be published in a peer-reviewed academic economics journal (you can find a reliable list of such journals here: https://inomics.com/advice/top-economics-journals-1306599) or be published on one of the following reputable sites: https://cepr.org/voxeu or https://www.economicsobservatory.com/ .

•   You must use at least ONE model which you have studied in this module as a  basis for your discussion (to help you with this, the most relevant parts from the CORE Econ texts are indicated for each question).

•   You must complete the Empirical Project referred to in your selected questions and include the full EP in the Appendix of your IWA submission. You must also include the key/ relevant results (graphs or tables) from your EP in the main body of your IWA submission to answer your selected question.

•    Make sure that your final submission reflects your own opinion as an economist.

•    Paste in hand-drawn/written graphs and mathematical equations as pictures in the appropriate place in your submission (e.g. take a photo of hand-written equations and insert it where you discuss the equations) and include your candidate number on each element pasted in. Do NOT paste in graphs, tables or equations you have not produced yourself.

•    Follow all UCL Academic Integrity rules; the use of Artificial Intelligence is NOT allowed in this assessment.

Questions: Select ONE (and ONLY ONE) question from the list below to answer. If you submit an answer to more than one question, only your first submission will be marked.

A.   MEASURING WELLBEING: Complete Empirical Project 4 in Core Econ’s Doing

Economics (you may work in Excel, R, Google Sheets or Python). Based on your results, explain the best way to measure wellbeing, comparing GDP per capita with HDI and at least one other measure of wellbeing suggested by your empirical project work. Make sure to (1) use the examples of different kinds of countries as per Q5 in Section 4.1 of the Walkthrough, and (2) explore the implications of each particular measure on policymaking. If you have trouble downloading the data, an alternative version of the data mentioned in the Empirical Project 4 instructions (Quality of Human Development) are attached at the end of the Resources list on this page. You can also use the data linked in the Python or other software instructions - even if you are using Excel for the empirical work. (The most relevant parts of The Economy 2.0 are Unit 1 and 3, and in ESPP, Units 3 and 4).

Check errata for this Empirical Project at the end of this document

B.   MEASURING INEQUALITY. Complete Empirical Project 5 in Core Econ’s Doing

Economics (you may work in Excel, R, Google Sheets or Python). Based on your results, explain the best way to measure inequality. Make sure to explore the implications of a particular measure on policymaking and on the effects on different groups in society.  (The most relevant parts of The Economy 2.0 is Unit 5, in The Economy 1.0, Unit 19, and in ESPP, Unit 5).

Check errata for this Empirical Projects at the end of this document

C.   NON-MONETARY COSTS OF UNEMPLOYMENT. Later in this module, you will

learn about the trade-off between inflation and unemployment in macroeconomic policymaking. Suppose that you have been retained by the government to try to understand the full costs of unemployment to feed into discussions of this trade-off. Complete Empirical Project 8 in Core Econ’s Doing Economics (you may work in Excel, R, Google Sheets or Python). Using your results from this project explain how the non-monetary costs of unemployment are likely to affect the country, paying particular attention to the country’s demographics and implications for different groups. (The most relevant part of The Economy 2.0 is Unit 6 and in ESPP, units 6 and 8).

D.   MANAGEMENT PRACTICES. Suppose that you have been retained by the

government to see how management practices in the country’s firms can be

revised to improve productivity across all sectors. Complete Empirical Project 6 in Core Econ’s Doing Economics (you may work in Excel, R, Google Sheets or

Python). Using your results from this project summarise and explain your

recommendations. Make sure to consider the characteristics of the country in question and of its firms in doing so. If you have trouble downloading the data, the two files mentioned in the Empirical Project 6 instructions are attached at the end of the Resources list on this page. (The most relevant part of The

Economy 2.0 is Unit 6 and in ESPP, unit 6).

Check errata for this Empirical Project at the end of this document

E.   WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION. Suppose that you

have been retained by the government to understand the population’s willingness to pay for climate change mitigation. Complete Empirical Project 11. Using your results from this project and referring to appropriate published economics research, summarizing your findings about how to measure WTP and what this implies for the government’s plans to design a policy intervention aimed at such mitigation. Make sure to consider the characteristics of each country in doing so.  (The most relevant part of The Economy 2.0 is Unit 10 and in ESPP, unit 6).