Quantitative Methods for Finance

You are provided with the data on per-capita GDP (in terms of purchasing power parity and constant 2011 international
dollars) and population of 179 countries for 1997 and 2017, along with the average annual growth rates of these statistics
for each country during the period. The data are from the United Nations Statistics Division website (http://data.un.org/).
You are asked to write a research essay that analyses this data set using the concepts and techniques acquired through this
course. Your analysis can include, for example, the following points.
• Produce line graphs and histograms for each variable and calculate plus interpret measures of central tendency.
• Formulate a null and an alternative hypothesis about a population mean and determine whether to reject the null
hypothesis at a given level of significance.
• Calculate and interpret the correlation coefficients between the variables.
• Explain how outliers can affect correlations.

Demonstrate appropriate use of terminology and tools.
• Draw links and connections between different concepts and ideas.
• Utilise additional sources such as publicly available data, scientific articles, newspaper articles and books.
• Appropriately use the terminology and tools covered in this course.
• Avoid the use of informal language and non-scientific reasoning.
• Presentation of data should be in a clear and precise manner.
• Your work should be set out as an essay; including an abstract and well structured conclusion.
• Label any diagrams used (eg. Figure One), give the diagram a title and credit the source.
• Label tables appropriately and give them table numbers throughout the text.
• Use Harvard Referencing appropriately and accurately.
• Write 2,000 (+/-10% not including references).