Assessment 3
Assessment Type: Research Report – 2500 words report - Team (Paired) assessment.
Purpose: To enable students to research, critically analyse and evaluate the impacts of macroeconomic
performance of Australia on Australian business, identifying appropriate responses taking into account
stakeholder expectations and concerns. This assessment contributes to Learning Outcomes b, c and d.
Value: 20% Due Date: Friday Week 10
Submission: One soft copy of the report to be uploaded to Moodle Turnitin – Word .doc or .docx.
Topic: Evaluation of macroeconomic performance of Australia.
Task details: Students will complete a research-based analysis and evaluation of the macroeconomic
performance of Australia and New Zealand for the period 1990 to 2015. The response needs to be
developed into a professionally presented report of 2500 words. Students will follow the following
procedure:
(1) Obtain data on key macroeconomic indicators: real GDP, Real GDP (PPP), inflation rate, foreign
direct investment (FDI) and exports and imports.
(2) Graph and discuss the relationship between Australia’s and New Zealand’s real GDP per capita
(PPP) growth rates. In particular, according to the data:
i. Which country’s real GDP per capita is a more stable?
ii. Which country recovered faster from the GFC in 2008?
iii. Which country has a stronger purchasing power (PPP)?
(3) Discuss the relationship between of Australia’s FDI growth and Real GDP (PPP) growth; Australia’s
FDI growth and net exports growth (i.e., % (exports - imports); Australia’s FDI growth and exchange
rate growth; and Australia’s FDI growth and inflation rate. Illustrate your discussion with summary
statistics and pairwise graphs.
(4) Conduct a multiple regression analysis (in log-linear form) of FDI growth on Real GDP (PPP) growth
exchange rate growth; net exports growth and inflation rate. Discuss the impact of each variable on
FDI growth.
(5) Discuss the policy implications of your results from (3) – (4) above.