Assignment: Panama

In preparation, each student should collect (and submit) the following:

1. What is your country's currency? Find some pictures of it.

2. Has your country always used this currency? What is the history?

3. What is your country's exchange rate system? Is the value of the currency determined by market forces (ie: a floating exchange rate) or is it fixed (pegged) against some standard of value? What type of floating or fixed rate system does your country use? (Refer to Chapter 15.)

4. How has your country's currency fluctuated against the US dollar since Jan 1, 2012? Provide a graphical representation. This is partially an exercise in finding and using data, so please DO NOT copy a pre-made graph from the internet. Get the data and create your own graph. It should have the date on the horizontal axis and your country's currency / dollar on the vertical axis.

Make sure to choose a source that you can be confident is providing correct information.

I recommend using the IMF's historical currency tool, and make sure to select "representative rates.".

Import the data to Excel, and make a graph. Put date on the horizontal axis and currency units per dollar on the vertical axis. If helpful, you can trim the data down to include the first day of each month, rather than including the data from every day.

Another good tool is XE's historical currency converter. However, if you use this, you'll need to repeat the search for multiple dates to construct the table and graph.