Economics 102 Assignment 1: FRED

Economics 102
Assignment 1: FRED
Due Date: Monday, January 21st
FRED is a comprehensive up-to-date data source maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis in the US, which is part of the US central banking system. If you want real-time macroeconomic data on the German unemployment rate or China’s output growth, you do not need to learn German and Chinese, or struggle to get to grips with national archives, because FRED provides the information for you. Fred contains the main macroeconomic statistics for almost all developed countries going back to the 1960s. FRED also allows you to make your own graphs and export data into a spreadsheet.
To learn how to use FRED to find macroeconomic data, follow these steps:
* Visit the FRED website.
* Use the search bar and type ‘Gross Domestic Product’ (GDP) and the name of an OECD country of your choice (the list can be found here: /about/membersandpartners/). Select the annual series for both nominal (current prices) and real (constant prices) GDP for this country. Click the ‘Add to Graph’ button at the bottom of the page.
Use the graph you created to answer these questions:
1 What is the level of nominal GDP in your chosen country this year?
2 FRED tells you that the real GDP is “chained” in a specific year, i.e. it is evaluated in terms of constant prices for that year. Note that the real GDP and the nominal GDP series cross at one point. Why does this happen?
From the FRED graph, keep only the real GDP series. FRED shows recessions in shaded areas for the US economy using the NBER definition,...