Your task on this assignment is to evaluate the long-run and short-run behavior of an industry or market-level variable and compare it with the associated macroeconomic variable. You may choose a variable that is of interest to you - perhaps from the industry you work in now. In the above video I explain how you may obtain your data from the following web site:

https://apps.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?ReqID=19&step=2#reqid=19&step=2&isuri=1&1921=underlying(Links to an external site.) (see Section 2).

Recall the following:

• NOMINAL quantities (e.g., total spending on a particular kind of good) should be compared to Nominal GDP
• REAL quantities (quantity index for a particular kind of good) should be compared to Real GDP
• Price Indexes for a particular type of good or service should be compared to the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Download historical data for your variable of interest and for your comparison variable (Nominal GDP, Real GDP, or CPI) as indicated in the video above. You should only examine ONE variable -- your choice of industry and of nominal, real, or price in that industry. Please attach your data file when you submit your original discussion post.

Analyze the data over the period 1959Q1 to the present (for quarterly data) or January 1959 to the present (for monthly data).

In your post, please complete the following tasks:

1. (30% of Substance/Relevance section) LONG-TERM: Compute the average annualized rate of growth for each variable over the entire time period. How do they compare? Answer in one paragraph.
2. (70% of Substance/Relevance section) SHORT-TERM: Use the business cycle peak and trough dates shown below to determine the annualized growth rate of each variable during the following business cycle episodes:

• The expansion that ran from February 1961 to December 1969 (or 1961Q1 to 1969Q4).
• The recession that ran from November 1973 to March 1975 (or 1973Q4 to 1975Q1).
• The expansion that ran from November of 1982 to July of 1990 (or 1982Q4 to 1990Q3).
• The recession that ran from December 2007 to June 2009 (or 2007Q4 to 2009Q2).
• The current expansion that ran from June 2009 to February 2020 (or 2009Q2 to 2020Q1).
• The recession starting in February 2020 to April 2020 (or 2019Q4 to 2020Q2).
• The expansion starting in April 2020 to the most recent month for which data are available (or 2020Q4 to the most recent quarter for which data are available).

For each episode, calculate the annualized growth rates of each variable and present the data in an informative table. Then write one paragraph explaining how your variable of interest and the corresponding macro variable behave in expansions and recessions (at the least in the ones selected above).

To summarize, your deliverables for this project are as follows:

• An original discussion post with the following
  • One short paragraph about long-run trends
  • An informative table about growth rates during the selected expansions and recessions
  • One paragraph about short-run fluctuations
• Attach to your original post an Excel file with your data and calculations.
• Respond to the original posts of two other students in the class.