PRESENTATION GUIDELINES for MacroEconomics 2301 for Phillip Tussing, Economics I

PRESENTATION GUIDELINES
for MacroEconomics 2301
for Phillip Tussing, Economics Instructor
Countries and Groups will be assigned by Instructor.
Duration: Minimum of 15 TEXT slides (including pretty pictures & graphs, but not including Title slide), PLUS “Works Cited” slide(s)
Group: group of 2-3 members. All Group members will receive the same grade (unless a group member is clearly contributing nothing).
Single Presenter must be approved in advance by the Instructor.
All Presentations will analyze the economic growth of a country (not the USA in any instance), in 3 parts, each part to be five slides long: increases (decreases) in
a) real GDP (net of inflation) on a Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) basis and
b) real GDP (PPP) per capita, over at least the last three (3) years for which data is available, but in any case including 2019 and 2020, and
c) Inequality-Adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI), with an indication of how it changed between 2010 and 2019.
Please offer an explanation for each measure for:
a) changes in levels of these measures in that period, as well as
b) why the levels should be considered “high” or “low” compared to other countries.
Purchasing power parity (PPP) is the measurement of prices in different countries that uses the prices of a standard basket of widely used goods and services to compare the absolute purchasing power of the countries’ currencies, and, to some extent, the living standards of residents. This contrasts with comparisons of GDP using nominal exchange rates, which is determined using only internationally traded goods.
According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP): “The Human Development Index (HDI) is a summary measure of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and have a decent standard of living. The HDI is the geometric mean of normalized indices for each of the three dimensions. The health dimension is assessed by life expectancy at birth, the education dimension is measured by mean of years of schooling for adults aged 25 years and more and expected years of schooling for children of school entering age. The standard of living dimension is measured by gross national income per capita.”
The IHDI is the HDI adjusted for inequality, using the Gini Coefficient (or Gini Index) as its measure of inequality. This is a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income inequality within a country. A Gini coefficient of 0 expresses perfect equality, where all values are the same, while a Gini coefficient of 1 (or 100%) expresses maximal inequality (all income earned by a single person) among values.
For these sections you are allowed to use the Wikipedia articles on these measures – that is, you are authorized to use the following lists ONLY from Wikipedia:
– “List of Countries by GDP (PPP)”
– “List of Countries by GDP (PPP) per capita”
– “List of countries by inequality-adjusted Human Development Index” – you will notice that of the 152 countries listed, only seven showed a deterioration in IHDI over the study period – one of them is the United States.
You should create a minimum of 15 slides with a moderate amount of explanatory text. Please follow Guidelines with respect to Works Cited and Analysis. Please advise me if anyone in your group is not contributing — I will remove them.
Presentation Rubric:
Grading Rubric: in three equal parts (too short Presentations will have reduced credit):
1. Presentation considerations (33%): One topic for analysis will be “the effect on economic growth of a severe unexpected event”.
2. Research (33%): A “Works Cited” page must be included, with not fewer than two (2) academic-level references per segment, whether online or hardcopy, PLUS a reference to the specific relevant section of the Textbook — for a total of (4) references– Wikipedia is NOT acceptable as a reference, NOR ANY dictionary, NOR is a blog, nor general news sites such as Fox News, USA Today, Huffington Post, etc. The Economist is fine, as are The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business Week, and other reputable business-oriented publications. “Works Cited” page MUST be included. Simply listing websites is NOT ACCEPTABLE — they must be identified clearly, stating the writer if known, publication, date, etc, as with any normal reference. Use MLA, ALA or Chicago Style or similar rules for references.
3. Analysis (33%): Topic must be specifically related to one or more relevant topics in the subject of Economic Growth, including factors that may enhance growth, such as more resources or better technology, or better economic management, as well as impediments to growth, such as corruption, war, disease (hint: COVID-19) and how well it is managed, poor governance, etc.
If you do not do the Presentation, you will be assigned a ZERO for this portion of the course – NO EXCEPTIONS.
Cheating by copying from the Internet without quotation marks or citation (plagiarism) can lead to a zero on the assignment at my discretion.
Possible locations for finding topics and/or relevant research:
An excellent way to find articles is through Google Scholar, which can be found if under Google you look at the grid labeled “Apps”, then go to “More”, then “Even More from Google”, and then look under “Specialized Search”.
The best online database for scholarly research in the Social Sciences is JSTOR, which is a limited access resource, which can be accessed through the College library site using your HCC login and password (the librarian can instruct you how to use it).
For general-purpose economics news magazines, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Business Week, The Harvard Business Review, and Bloomberg are all acceptable