Question 1: Some Canadian Macroeconomic Data [35 marks]

This question asks you to work with some Canadian Macroeconomic data (available on the OnQ website) and conduct some basic empirical analysis. Once you have the data, any spreadsheet program, such as Microsoft Excel or Calc from the LibreOffice Suite (available freely for both Windows and Mac OS X operating systems), will work well for our purposes.

The following data series for Canada, two of the Canadian main oil-exporting provinces, Alberta and Newfoundland and Labrador, and two of the Canadian main oil-importing provinces, Ontario and Quebec, are provided:

(1) GDP at market prices in chained 2012 dollars for the period 1981-2019; (2) Population (for both sexes and all ages) for the period 1981-2019.

a) Plot real GDP (the GDP in chained 2012 dollars) for Canada and all provinces over the period in separate graphs, briefly comment on their trends and compare the two oil-exporting provinces' trends with those of the two oil-importing provinces.

b) Compute the year to year percentage changes of real GDP for Canada and all provinces over 1982-2019. Report the (arithmetic) average growth rates for four different sub-

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periods: 1982-1989, 1990-1999, 2000-2009, and 2010-2019 in a table and comment on your findings. (Note: you do not need to report the GDP growth rates for every year)

c) Use the annual population and real GDP data to construct the GDP per capita series for Canada and all provinces and plot them in the same graph. Briefly comment on their trends and compare the two oil-exporting provinces' trends with those of the two oil-importing provinces. Moreover, compare the results to part (a). (Note: you need to multiply the real GDP values by 1000000 and then divide them by the population size)

d) Compute the year to year percentage changes of real GDP per capita for Canada and all provinces over 1982-2019. Report the (arithmetic) average growth rates for four different sub-periods: 1982-1989, 1990-1999, 2000-2009, and 2010-2019 in a table and comment on your findings.

Data you need:

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1710000501&pickMembers%5B0%5D=1.1&pickMembers%5B1%5D=2.1&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=1981&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2019&referencePeriods=19810101%2C20190101

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3610022201&pickMembers%5B0%5D=1.1&pickMembers%5B1%5D=2.1&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=1981&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2019&referencePeriods=19810101%2C20190101