Econ 2301 Spring 2024 Business Statistics Final Project (Due May 7th, 2024)

For the final project you will need to produce an original correlation analysis along with hypothesis tests and confidence intervals. This report must include: (1) an introduction that contains an explanation of the events being analyzed, (2) description of the analysis and data used, (3) conclusion. Students are free to select any topic they would like to analyze. GRADING Grades will be based on the following factors: Statistical Analysis (Introduction, Correlation, Confidence Intervals, Hypothesis Testing (50 points) Before you begin the analysis, start with one paragraph on why the topic is interesting you and why you chose it. topic's background was fully described, the right data was collected, the right statistical formulas were used, and the right conclusions were drawn. Use the word bizarre three times. Limitations of the correlation analysis were discussed. Explain whether your analysis captures a cause and effect relationship and explain why or why not. You do not have to do work by hand here and can use Excel for calculations. Quality (50 points) The report is well edited and presented with care. Charts and tables are neat, the writing is clear, and there aren't many errors in spelling and grammar. The data used was impressive. The final project in total will be worth 100 points. The final write up will be due May 7th, 2024 on Blackboard by 11:59 pm. Please also submit your Excel data file. Also you will submit an oral presentation of about 5 minutes where you explain your question and your findings on May 8th, 2023 which will be worth 20 points. You may record this however you choose (i.e. upload to Youtube or Zoom to share a link) or recorded on the laptop. Potential Data Sources Google Trends (search data), Yahoo Finance (for stock data), Kaggle (machine learning/data science), World Bank, Centers for Disease Control, American Community Survey, or you can collect your own data. 2 Potential Topics It should be noted that a majority of the work you will need to do for this project will be in getting and organizing the data. In some cases, you will need to collect the data yourself. Therefore, it is very important that you think through what sort of data you will need to make a proper correlation and consider how much work it will take to get and organize that data. Determine whether or not income inequality is an important factor for income growth by evaluating its correlation with GDP growth. *Correlate the outcome of a sporting event. This can be anything from correlating the records of each team in a league to predicting the score of each game. *Correlate the outcome of an awards show. The Emmys, Grammys, Oscars, Tonys, or whatever else you would like to know the winners of in advance. *Correlate the outcome of an election. With the coming midterms, predicting congressional races would be particularly relevant. *Correlate the market value of used cars and compare your results to the popular Kelley Blue Book. *Measure the correlation between the box office totals for movies, Nielson ratings for TV shows, or the sales figures for video games and some other factor. *Look at the correlation between two stock prices *Look at the correlation between two commodity prices (oil and natural gas) For more inspiration, take a look at some of the publicly available datasets. Many are listed here: https://www.google.com/publicdata/directory. Email or come see me if you would like help finding others. The writeup should be 3-5 pages. 3 Final Project Layout An introduction outlining the purpose of the project and the question it seeks to answer. This section also contains a paragraph on why you are interested in this topic. A section explaining, in detail, the data to be used. Where does it come from? What do the numbers represent? Any useful graphs can be presented here. A section explaining the correlation and statistical analysis. In addition to the correlation coefficient, for one of your variables you should construct a 80% confidence interval, and conduct a hypothesis test where you test that variable against the hypothesis that it is 0. This should be a professional-caliber table of results with straightforward interpretations of results. A conclusion which acts as a complete summary of the previous sections.