Country Study Assignment 

1.  Choose a country.  Each person in the class must choose a foreign country and become the class expert on its international monetary relations.  There are more than enough countries in the world to choose from, so only one student in the class per country, and only one student in each group per continent or region. 

Here are some suggestions.

Western Europe and Offshoots:  Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerand, United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Australia, Canada

Latin American countries:  Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, Ecuador, Guatemala

East Asian countries:  China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam

African countries:  Algeria, Botswana, Ivory Coast (Côte d'Ivoire), Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Seychelles, South Africa

There are also countries you can choose in central and eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Caribbean, et cetera.  Each student must e-mail me at eparker@unr.edu to get approval, and if I do not approve your choice I will suggest an alternative.  Act fast:  popular countries are chosen quickly.

 2.  Look for statistical sources for your country.  With your group, go to the library’s reference desk and find the statistical reports of the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the United Nations to make sure your country reports its statistical data to these organizations.  Back issues of these reports are available on the second floor of the library, and you should familiarize yourself with what is available.  Some of these data may also be available online.  Also go online to see if your country makes its own official statistics available.  IQuiz 4Country f the data available is inadequate, you should contact me to change countries.

Data should be available for at least the last ten years, and preferably more.  You will need to know information about your countries' trade balance, financial account, exchange rate, interest rates, money supply, price inflation, and GDP (total and per capita).

You might want to go directly to your country's government website (or that of its central bank) to see what you can find there.  There are a few examples and other websites listed on my homepage at http://www.coba.unr.edu/faculty/parker/index.html#data.

3.  Turn in a one-page proposal on the due date, with the country you chose, the date I approved it by e-mail, and the sources you will use for data.  Also include the dates for which you can find complete and consistent data.