Data Report 1 A client has asked you to prepare them a report on the history of economic statistics in the United States. The client is an intelligent businessman, but only knows the basics of economics. Your job is to develop a report that provides them an overview of the key trends and patterns in US economic history in a well-organized, visually appealing report including graphs of the most important economic variables. Requirements 1. Your report should start with a title page and a brief introduction giving a brief overview of what the report is about and what it will include. It should end with a brief conclusion summarizing the key points. The body of the report should include graphs and descriptions that help the reader understand how the US economy has developed over time. It is up to you how to exactly organize the report. You may want to separate the data into different time periods to help break it up or group sets of variables and describe them all together. Your report should read as a cohesive story of the US economy. | have provided a data set for you to use, but you should not use every variable. It is up to you to decide which variables are important to include. You must discuss a minimum of 6 distinct variables and 6 separate graphs in your report, but can include more as you feel necessary to tell your story. Including more variables will not automatically earn you a higher grade. Only include what is useful in understanding the history of the US economy. You are not expected to understand or explain theories for why the data moves (beyond basic knowledge you may already have from other economics classes), but rather just to explain how it moves and changes over time. You do not need to do any research or use any resource beyond the included dataset and will not receive extra points for doing so. You are graded only on your ability to draw insights from the data itself. You are expected to know basic definitions of variables and should look these up if you don't (what is cpi, what's the difference between real and nominal variables, etc.) There is no formal requirement for the length of the report, but you will not get more credit for simply writing more. A concise, insightful report is much preferred to a lengthy, bloated one. Your report needs to look nice. Graphs should be easy to read, consistently themed, and cleanly formatted. You should not use the default graph style of whatever program you make them in. Text should be presented neatly and it should be clear to which graph the text refers. It should be easy to figure out the main ideas the report is trying to convey. Moderate use of color is a good idea. Have some fun with it! Creativity is encouraged! You may use whatever program you want to put the report together. Excel, Google Sheets, and Numbers will all work for graphs (you may also use a statistical program like R, Stata, Python if you believe it will be more helpful for your future career, but | think it is valuable to have spreadsheet experience). Word, Pages, Google Docs, Powerpoint, or Keynote will work to put everything together into a nice report (if you use a presentation software, keep in mind you still want to create a standalone document, not a presentation). If you have another program you want to use it's probably fine. In the end you should submit your report as a single PDF. Grading: Base Points Explanation Introduction/Title Page Data Report includes a title page and an introduction that provides a preview of the report and the data that it will cover. The intro should explain how the report is organized and which variables are included and how they fit into the history of the US. Conclusion Data Report includes a conclusion that leaves the reader with some key takeaways and wraps up the report. Why should the client care about the data that you have shown? Graphs Data report includes the required 6 graphs and 6 variables and shows a clear attempt to make transformations and comparisons across variables when appropriate and go beyond the default Excel graph style. Graphs always effectively convey the information, are easy to read and are integrated appropriately into the report. Includes the required graphs and variables and graphs are for the most part clean and easy to read, but most graphs are simple line graphs and the report doesn't seem to make an effort to explore different transformations or comparisons between variables. Report may be missing at least one graph or variable, but included graphs are generally well done even if they do not go beyond simple line graphs of the raw data. Or, includes all required graphs but some of the graphs are difficult to read and don't convey the data in an effective way. Missing some graphs or variables or some of the graphs appear very low effort (little to no change to the default graph style) or messy in appearance. Missing many graphs or variables or most or all graphs appear very low effort. Descriptions Descriptions serve as effective complements to the graphs and go beyond just describing each graph one by one (e.g. making comparisons between variables or across time periods, explaining why specific variables were chosen and grouped together). Some thought is put into the organization of the report and the appearance and formatting of text and graphs. It is clear from the descriptions why each variable was included in the report and how it relates to other variables. 4 Descriptions are clear and effectively explain each variable, sometimes making comparisons across different variables, but the report as a whole might be lacking cohesive organization and doesn't always appear that thought was put into which variables to include and why. The report as a whole doesn't always try to put variables together into a story of the US economy over time. 3 Descriptions are included and explain each variable, but only occasionally go beyond basic description of the graph with only a little comparison across variables or time periods. Appearance of the report and formatting of the text and graphs may be a bit messy or unclear. 2 Some variables or graphs are not appropriately described or the description is confusing. It may be unclear how the graphs and descriptions fit together. Appearance and formatting of the texts and graphs does not appear to be well thought out. 1 Descriptions are missing or extremely basic, and add little to nothing to the graphs. Extra Points: Up to 8 extra points will be allocated by the grader as appropriate. Extra points can be earned for a report that looks especially nice, does interesting things with the data, or has especially strong descriptions and insightful analysis. As a reminder, this is not a research assignment and you will not get extra points for looking up academic papers or other sources. You can use basic knowledge you have gained from other economics classes to help guide your analysis, but you can also just go purely off what you observe in the data