Context:

As a staff member for a newly elected politician, you have been assigned a task by the Chief of Staff to provide a comprehensive assessment of Australia’s economic performance following the COVID- 19 pandemic.

This report will serve as a resource for the politician, who possesses a general understanding of economics but may not have in-depth expertise.

Consequently, the report must be accessible and easily understandable, while maintaining a high level of accuracy and rigor. The findings should be substantiated with data from authoritative, primary sources (e.g., the Australian Bureau of Statistics) to ensure credibility, as these insights will inform policy decisions.

Tasks:

As a researcher within the office, your assigned tasks for the report are as follows:

1.   Descriptive Economic Assessment:

o  Provide a detailed assessment of Australia’s inflation from the onset of the recovery period post-COVID to the present day.

2.   Benchmarking Against Peer Economies:

o  Compare Australia’s inflation trajectory and performance with that of peer economies, specifically the Group of Seven (G7) countries.

In doing so, you will deliver a structured Country Report, which includes the following illustrative features:

 Up to four (4) figures (diagrams, graphs or tables) in total. Here, you can use a mixture of diagrams, graphs and tables provided the total number is no more than 4.

 You can include more than one variable in a graph or table.

 You must produce your figures, rather than cut and paste from some sources. You must keep a copy of the file that you use to create your figures as you could be asked to provide it as proof that those figures are your work.

 You can use direct quotes provided the total number of quoted words sums to 20 words or less in the whole of the report. This rule is intended to prevent students from over-relying   on direct quotes without critically analysing the content of the source.

TOPIC ALLOCATION

The topic you must use for this report is based on the last digit of your student number: For example, if your student number is 44194356, then you need to work on productivity.

REPORT STRUCTURE

1.   Macroeconomic Performance (~700-800 words)

•   Assess the performance of Australia’s inflation since it started its recovery from the economic contraction brought on by COVID pandemic (up to end 2024).

-   You need to assess when the economic recovery began.

-   You might also need to benchmark the evolution of inflation over the recovery period against pre-pandemic economic performance.

•   The assessment must be substantiated with detailed analysis on the drivers of inflation, for different definitions and for different sectors of the economy (Topics 1 to 4 of the course).  Consider, for example,

-   Headline inflation; Trimmed inflation

-   Supply vs demand factors

•   You need to provide an assessment as to whether the economic performance of Australia was good, bad or mixed, relative to Australia’s economy pre-pandemic and/or with other  commonly used benchmarks.

-   Your findings will need to be substantiated against macroeconomic data from authoritative primary sources such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Reserve Bank of Australia.

-   You should present the data in a form that is easily and intuitively understood, e.g. in the form of tables or graphs.

-   Benchmarks might include long-run trends or averages from the pre-COVID era.

-   Your analysis must properly cite recent studies in respectable economic journals (e.g., Economic Record) that investigated the topic before you.