Choose one country currently member of the European Union (EU) having joined it after the year 2000.

The other country shall be the UK, as a comparison, since it is an older member of the EU.

Collect data on the following economic variables:

• basic descriptives of the size of the economy / economic growth indicators: population (you can choose to include fertility/ mortality rate, dependency rate), GDP, GDP per capita, the rate of economic growth, GINI coefficient (inequality of income distribution), public debt (in %GDP)
• financial market and investment indicators: inflation, interest rate, FDI, currency exchange rate fluctuation (e.g. vs. the US dollar), major trends in economic activity /changes (e.g. manufacturing vs services contribution to GDP) , taxation (e.g. income tax, corporation tax)
• the unemployment rate and any other labour market indicators e.g. labour force size, labour force by sector, average gross wage, minimum wage, poverty, gender pay gap, labour market participation, immigration / emigration number or rate, education (e.g. share with degree)
• trade indicators: the balance of trade (i.e. deficit/surplus), government deficit/surplus, volume/pattern of exports and imports to and from the rest of the world (if possible split trade between EU and non-EU trade).