Describe, Compare and Contrast the Economies of Australia and The Netherlands

TBS 905 Economic Analysis of the Business Environment

Main Assignment – Comparison of two economies.

This assignment is aimed at a number of elements of capability

· planning an evaluation by deciding in the economic variables which may be relevant to the particular country comparison you have been set;

· researching in terms of searching for and evaluating both hard data on the selected macroeconomic variables, and qualitative comment and analysis on the reasons the countries have got to where they are economically, and where they might be going;

· analysis in assessing and collating the data and formulating a clear depiction of the two countries, their differences and their similarities and

· presentation in putting forward the information and analysis you have in a form which is clear, accurate and easy to understand.

All the elements listed are important, and they depend on each other. An excellent presentation of poor or incorrect data will still be a poor report.

Style: as with other reports which you will find in your work, this assignment is necessarily in a mixed style. The numerical, factual and graphical descriptions are most coherently handled in a report format, with clear headings, tables where appropriate, and an emphasis on clarity. In writing about the two economies in terms of past and future, similarities and differences however there is a need for an essay style where you can use critical thinking and a discussive mode of presentation.

Suggested approach: the best way to approach this task is to read enough about the two economies to understand what are their really characteristic features. Once you have a feel for this, you then need to decide the specific macroeconomic variables you will use to describe the two economies in order to draw out similarities, differences and features of interest. Having chosen your descriptive variables, you then need to search for the appropriate data, collate and compare the data for the countries, and use that as the basis of your analysis and report.

It sometimes happens that the most relevant variables and their data are the ones most easily found. More often however this is not the case, so if you base your report on those variables which are most readily available rather than the ones you actually need, you may well produce a report which is not of high value.

Some problems: over the number of times this assignment has been undertaken for different country pairs, a number of issues have come up on different occasions. They include

· assignment length: the word count set for this assignment is a real limit and while there is a degree of tolerance excessive variation from the set amount will attract a penalty in marks. You must quote a word count. The most common cause for excessive length lies in stating information multiple times. It is not uncommon to see variables depicted in a graph, then shown below in a data table, and then described verbally as a third approach. The latter two approaches are redundant and attract no marks. Part of the task in this assignment is to depict clearly on graphs the history of particular macroeconomic variables. The information shown may then be discussed, but not described (writing that “...in 1999 real GDP fell by 3.4%...” adds nothing to a graph which already shows that). It is important to use your available word count for discussion purposes.

· data collection: the requirement to present at least five years’ data, and for that period to be very recent, is generally fixed, and there are very few significant macroeconomic variables which are not reported in that fashion. Presenting data of a shorter duration will lose marks. It is sometimes tempting to use shorter time periods because of the availability of pre-made graphs. However the tradeoff is that you may save some time but lose marks though inadequate data, and non-uniform data presentation. It is also important that data is for the same period – two five year data sets which only overlap for four years will only allow a four year comparison, and a five year comparison is required. It is also important that data definition be used carefully – when using data from different sources be sure the definition of the data you are using is the same. Reputable data will usually have very explicit definitions associated with it.

· time: some students have had difficulties with the total time they have spent on this assignment. This has most commonly come about because of the time spent on data collection, and often the collection of an amount of data far larger than can reasonably be handled in the assignment length. The approach to data collection outlined above will help avoid this – that is, if you set out to look for that data which you have already decided you need, rather than what is available.

· quotation: this assignment like any other must be fully referenced in terms of both text and data. It is likely that some or all data may be electronically based, and this must be referenced fully in the manner specified in the subject outline. It is expected that quotation exceeding 5-10% of the total word count (depending on the nature of the quotation) will be penalised in assessment.

· quality: very clearly the quality of all available data and commentary sources is not the same, and sometimes the lowest quality sources are the most easily obtained. There is a separate note on the WebCT site under ‘Resources’ titled “Other Internet Resources”. This is strongly recommended reading before completing your assignment. Generally, the best quality data and commentary will come from national statistical agencies and literature searches on library databases such as ProQuest respectively.