I. INTRODUCTION Assume that you are an economic consultant hired by an international organization/government to provide your expert advice on economic conditions pertaining to the United States and Ecuador. Your analysis will consist of two separate reports (one for Assignment 1 and the other for Assignment 2). As an expert, your job is two-fold: 1. You are required to analyse any relevant issue using your technical skills. This involves utilizing your knowledge in economic models as well as inspecting and interpreting data. 2. You need to communicate your results in an effective way. The purpose of this exercise is to assess your aptitudes in each domain. You will evaluate the economic conditions in these countries (the United States and Ecuador) based on the scenarios detailed in each question in this assignment. Your analysis will form the basis for a short report to the international organization/government body summarising your analysis and the associated rationale.

II. DATA SOURCE For your data analysis, you first need to obtain data from the World Bank (see the link below) and follow the steps described below. Notice that World Bank regularly updates its database; therefore, it is crucial to obtain all data as soon as possible. The data range is from 2003 to 2018. You need to obtain the country-level data for the United States and Ecuador on: i. Imports of goods and services (in current US$) ii. Exports of goods and services (in current US$) iii. GDP (in current US$) iv. GDP per capita (in current US$) v. GINI Index (World Bank estimate) from the World Bank's World Development Indicators: (http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=world-development-indicators).

DATA ANALYSIS For data analysis, you need to follow Steps 1, 2 and 3 given below.

Step 1. Using the data you obtained for the United Stated and Ecuador, calculate the correlation coefficient (using CORREL command in excel) between openness and GDP per capita (which is a proxy for economic development) for each nation. Report and interpret this relationship and state for which country this relationship is stronger. When reporting, you can round off each correlation value to 2 or more decimal places.

Step 2. Using the data you obtained for the United Stated and Ecuador, calculate the correlation coefficient (using CORREL command in excel) between Openness and the GINI Index (which is a proxy for the ratio of skilled to unskilled wages for each nation in empirical studies).1 Report and interpret this relationship and state for which country this relationship is stronger. When reporting, you can round off each correlation value to 2 or more decimal places.

Step 3. Assume that the United States is a skilled-labour abundant country, whereas Ecuador is an unskilled-labour abundant. First define, Stolper-Samuelson theorem and then check whether your data findings from Step 2 are in line with the Stolper-Samuelson theorem. Explain your answer.