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Measuring & Assessing National Economies
MGTSC 458 and MGTSC 686, Winter term, 2019: 6:30-9:30 pm Tuesdays in Bus 1-5 Professor: Alice O. Nakamura ([email protected])
If you’d like to meet with me, email me and we’ll arrange a time.
Teaching Assistant for this course: Ryan Shearer ([email protected] ) Course Website: http://asobstats.ca/
Professor: Alice O. Nakamura ([email protected])
You can almost always talk with me during the break for the class or at the end. For other times, please send me an email.
The course website is at http://asobstats.ca/ .
Knowing about the economic statistics used to judge the performance of nations is part of business literacy.
These terms are used, for example, in the news, in wage negotiations, and in the bargaining between businesses over prices for goods and services supplied. This is also the terminology used for the national accounts: the framework of accounting for the market economies of nations. You’ll learn this important business language in this course.
In addition, the course aims to help you improve your skills for finding and making use of data, especially including the official statistics data published by national statistics agencies such as Statistics Canada in this nation and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) in the US as well as by international organizations considered to be part of the global official statistics system including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Statistics Directorate of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). This course also aims to help you improve your skills for finding and drawing out information from relevant studies and reports of others. You will be given help as well for improving your skills for speaking and writing about the making and reporting of empirical results on the topics you
choose to focus on.
In this course, you will research, present, and then finalize your write-ups for two reports of your own. Students are encouraged (but not required) to choose topics for their reports that are in line with their future career plans.
You will gain experience too in offering helpful suggestions to others. For this course, we use a special online response system that lets you enter suggestions for your classmates in real time when they are making presentations, and I read and evaluate those comments.
You will be given copies or online links for all general reading materials for this course, but will need to find online (and will be given help finding) special reading materials for the topics you choose for your reports. You need to bring a lap top computer to class each week, beginning with Week 2.
Requirements for taking this course: MGTSC 312 or any other introductory statistics or econometrics course, and one introductory economics or finance type of course.
My qualifications for teaching this course include having been a member of the Statistics Canada Price Measurement Advisory and National Accounts Advisory Committees for multiple decades; being a long time member and the current president of the International Association for Research on Income and Wealth
(http://www.iariw.org/); being a long time member and a past president of the Canadian Economics Association (https://economics.ca/en/); having organized multiple international conferences on official statistics topics (http://www.ipeer.ca/CRIW.htm; http://indexmeasures.com/dc2008/finalprogram.htm;
http://www.cerforum.org/conferences/20120330/preliminary_program.pdf ); and my own research over the years (http://www.alicenakamura.com/).
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The reading materials for the exams are posted on the course website in the Materials Folder, or you’ll be given hard copies or links for the material.
On the dates for the talks, you will need you to bring to class your own laptop computer. (Please talk to me if this requirement is a problem for you.)
CLASS SCHEDULE OF READINGS & ASSIGNMENTS Week 1, Jan. 8: An introduction to this course.
Week 2, Jan. 15: Lecture on price level and output measures Week 3, Jan. 22: Price level and output measures (cont.) Week 4, Jan. 29:Mini Exam 1 on price level and output measures
The readings for this mini-exam are:
CPI Guide for Canada
Consumer Price Index, December 2018, Canada
(https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/190118/dq190118a-eng.htm?HPA=1 )
“What do the Different Measures of GDP Tell Us?” by Philip Cross
“Gross Domestic Product (GDP)” published by the OECD
“Cost Pass-Through in the U.S. Coffee Industry”
Workshop on Topic 1 talks and papers Week 5, Feb. 5:Topic 1 talks
Week 6, Feb. 12:Lecture on labor statistics Winter Term Reading Week
Week 7, Feb. 26:Labor statistics (cont.) Week 8, March 5: Mini Exam 2 on labor statistics
The readings for this mini-exam are:
“Measuring employment and unemployment”
“Recent trends in Canada’s labour market”
“Labour market statistics, eurostat”
“The US Employment Situation” by the BLS
“World Employment Social Outlook,” International Labour Organization Workshop on Topic 2 talks and papers
Week 9, March 12: Topic 2 talks
Week 10, March 19:Lectureon productivity and wellbeing metrics for nations Week 11, March 26:Lecture on productivity and wellbeing metrics (cont.)
Week 12, April 2:Mini Exam 3 on productivity and wellbeing metrics The readings for this mini-exam are:
“Concepts and measures of productivity: An introduction” by Diewert and Nakamura Real GDI & Relative Prices Across the OECD, Ryan Macdonald at Statistics Canada
ONS on Productivity
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston on Standard of Living Measures
“Difficulties Assessing Multifactor Productivity for Canada” by Harper, Nakamura and Zhang Workshop on Topic 3 talks and papers
Week 13, April 9: Topic 3 talks Bring your laptop to enter comments.
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Term papers are to be submitted online: Friday, April 12 by 11 pm
Schedule
Maximum points:
Introduction to course Jan 8 class
Lecture on output measures Jan 15 class
--Topic 1 proposal, including a statement of why you chose the topic Thurs Jan 17 1
Output measures (cont.) Jan 22 class 2
Mini Exam 1 on output measures; Workshop on Topic 1 talks & papers. Jan 29 class 3
Topic 1 talks Feb 5 class
Topic 1 paper due Mon Feb 11 15
Lecture on labor and capital services statistics Feb 12
--Topic 2 proposal, including links to at least four papers on the topic Thurs Feb 14 2
Reading Week Feb 19-22
Labor and capital services statistics (cont.) Feb 26 2
Mini Exam 2 on labor and capital services; Workshop on Topic 2 talks & papers. March 5 4
Topic 2 talks March 12
Topic 2 paper due Mon Mar 18 20
Lecture on productivity and wellbeing metrics for nations March 19
--Topic 3 proposal, including links to at least six papers on the topic Thurs Mar 21 2
March 26 2
Mini Exam 3 on productivity metrics; Workshop on Topic 3 talks & papers. April 2 10
Topic 3 talks April 9
Topic 3 paper due Fri Apr 12 25
Your comments on the talks of others (2 points for each of 6 class periods) 12
Total
100
You will be provided with examples of relevant questions before prior to each mini-exam this year.
From the information provided in this course outline, you know the points, out of a total of 100, you can receive for each evaluation item for this course.
That information gives you the relative weighting of the evaluation items for the course. On each mini-exam, you will also be able to see the maximum points for a fully correct answer for each and every exam problem. Those who receive higher point totals by the end of the course will receive higher letter grades. In previous years, total points of 95+, 90-94+, 85-89+, 80-84+, 75-79+, and 70-74+ translated approximately into letter grades of A+, A, A-, B+, B+, and B-, respectively. However, It is not possible to promise that the cutoffs this year will be exactly the same. The University of Alberta explicitly forbids the assignment of letter grades based on pre-set proportions of students in the different letter grade categories. Instead, it is stated that final letter grades must be assigned based on the performance levels of the individual students. It is only after an exam sometimes that one or more questions can be recognized as having been harder, or easier, than was intended. It would not be appropriate, for example, to not be able to given any A+ marks one year because a 5 point problem was skipped or missed by all students even though there were students who did everything else for the course perfectly. It is also a written policy of the University of Alberta that the grades a professor assigns are not final until approved by the appropriate authorities within each Faculty. This means that a professor could be asked to change the grades initially submitted, but that would not be possible with a preset formula for translating total points into letter grades.
"The University of Alberta is committed to the highest standards of academic integrity and honesty. Students are expected to be familiar with these standards regarding academic honesty and to uphold the policies of the University in this respect. Students are particularly urged to familiarize themselves with the provisions of the Code of Student Behavior (online a www.governance.ualberta.ca) and avoid any behavior that could potentially result in suspicions of cheating, plagiarism, misrepresentation of facts and/or participation in an offence. Academic dishonesty is a serious offence and can result in suspension or expulsion from the University.
Policy about course outlines can be found in “Course Requirements, Evaluation Procedures and Grading of the University Calendar".
"Audio or video recording, digital or otherwise, of lectures, labs, seminars or any other teaching environment by students is allowed only with the prior written consent of the instructor or as a part of an approved accommodation plan. Student or instructor content, digital or otherwise, created and/or used within the context of the course is to be used solely for personal study, and is not to be used or distributed for any other purpose without prior written consent from the content author(s).” Course materials given to you are also solely for your personal study use, and should not be uploaded to online sites or offered for sale or given to others without prior consent.
January 22, 2019 version