DukeTiger3266
The selected company is General Motors (GM) Your draft should…
The selected company is General Motors (GM)
Your draft should include:
A brief industry/company history, and a brief industry/company overview, not to exceed one page.
A definition of the following. You may use the textbook as a source for all your definitions. You may also use other reliable sources of information throughout your paper but refrain from using sources like Wikipedia or Investopedia.
Real GDP
Unemployment rate
Inflation rate as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI)
Using the data links provided at the end of these guidelines, find and summarize national data (data for the U.S. economy) for the three macroeconomic indicators above, and explain their national trends from 2000 – 2021, using your own graphs, derived from the data collected from the following sources:
Bureau of Economic Analysis
Bureau of Labor Statistics
National Bureau of Economic Research
In addition to the three nationwide macroeconomic indicators above, define, collect and summarize the following data, and explain their trends by using your own graphs, for three additional economic indicators, applicable at the individual firm level:
Sales
Unemployment
Interest rate (for example: mortgage rate, prime interest rate, fed funds rate, discount rate, three-month treasury bill, 10 year treasury bond)
Housing starts
Foreign exchange rate
Producer Price Index (PPI)
Oil and fuel prices
If you cannot find three firm-level indicators, you can choose the second and/or third indicator to represent the industry level, either locally, regionally, statewide, nationwide, or even globally. You must first try to find firm-level indicators, and only if your search fails, you can look at industry-level indicators. You can search this government website: http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtmlLinks to an external site. for annual reports of publicly traded companies.
In summary, in parts 3 and 4 of your paper you need to define each of the six indicators (three of which are nationwide, and the other three are firm-specific), and describe their trend, including each indicator’s current status, based on the time series data and the corresponding graph you have to draw for each indicator. You need to illustrate their historic trends for the last 10-15 years. In the presence of data limitations, especially for company-specific time series, the minimum number of years should not be lower than 5 years.
Compare and contrast the three nationwide indicators in part 3 with three corresponding indicators in part 4. For the comparison to make sense, when you choose your indicators in part 4, consider how appropriate/suitable they are for comparison purposes to the indicators in part 3. For example, compare and contrast: 1) RGDP growth rate with the real sales growth rate (or NGDP growth rate with the sales growth rate) , 2) inflation rate at the U.S. economy level with (a) price changes in percentage (the growth rate of prices) at the company level, or (b) inflation rate at the industry level, or inflation rate using CPI with the inflation rate using PPI, and 3) unemployment rate at the national level versus unemployment rate at the industry level (either locally, regionally or nationally).
Final Paper
You must submit your draft by April 16 to receive feedback. Incorporate the feedback received and address at least three of the following five topics:
Explain whether the current economic conditions are more consistent with the Keynesian or neoclassical economic theories.
Summarize the impact of the macro-environment, as described by the indicators in part 3, on your company’s economic performance in general, or by focusing on any of the indicators in part 4.
Analyze the relationship between inflation, unemployment, and the business cycle in the industry/company.
Include a brief evaluation of the impact of past and current fiscal policies and monetary policies on the economy and on your industry/company.
Add an original section to your paper that does not address any of the topics above (or those in Part I), and is specific to your company/industry. This section can address any topics contained in the course modules and should be no longer than one page. Topics to consider in this section may include:
A brief forecast analysis of any company/industry-specific indicators and why you believe such a forecast is accurate.
How this forecast will impact your company/industry in the near future?
A brief discussion of any recommendations or strategic initiatives your company should undertake.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Company-level data, such as sales, or net income might be available in the EDGAR system:
EDGAR – The Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval system http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtmlLinks to an external site.
http://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.htmlLinks to an external site.
Nationwide data can be found on these websites:
RGDP data
http://www.bea.gov/Links to an external site.
NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee page:
http://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions.htmlLinks to an external site.
Unemployment data
http://www.bls.gov/cps/tables.htmLinks to an external site.
Unemployment by state
http://www.bls.gov/lau/Links to an external site.
CPI data
http://www.bls.gov/cpiLinks to an external site.
http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet?request_action=wh&graph_name=CU_cpibriefLinks to an external site.
If you decide to use graphs prepared by a credible source, such as FRED, make sure the source is listed at the bottom of the graph.
You can build/creat all your graphs using Excel. Once finalized, copy and paste them into your Word document (your draft). You can also choose to represent data in bar graphs, histograms, or pie charts if you find it suitable. However, for comparison purposes, clarity and simplicity, try to have most of your graphs in the format shown under this research paper folder.
