Requirement:

Prepare a report on the current state of the Australian economy and its management by the Federal government. You need to do this by examining the following four economic indicators - economic growth (GDP), unemployment, inflation and trade (including the terms of trade, the current account, net foreign debt and the value of the Australian dollar). In your report you are expected to outline the target values for these economic indicators as well as the trend in these economic indicators over the last 10 years. Finally, you should outline the current macroeconomic policies of the Federal government and RBA where you think these policies may relate to these four economic indicators and comment on whether you see these policies as suitable in the present economic environment.   Given your analysis, you are expected to conclude your report with policy recommendations to achieve targeted economic growth, unemployment, inflation and trade outcomes.

Structure of report- Your report must include:

• an appropriate title
• an abstract (sometimes called an executive summary) summarising the report
• an introduction in which you briefly explain what you are going to address in the report and why
• the body of the essay broken into sections with appropriate section headings
• a brief conclusion that should summarise your analysis and your predictions and recommendations
• appropriate referencing and a reference list as required.

Although the requirements for presentation and structure may appear pedantic, they are not. In the business world you may often find yourself involved in writing a report - perhaps even for multilateral and government organisations such as the IMF or OECD. We suggest that you devote some time to developing this skill. Your future career can only be enhanced by your ability to communicate effectively in writing.

 Some advice about Assignment-

Your short "Abstract" needs to describe the aim of the report and a brief overview of the economic targets, government policy and recommendations. It should be approximately 500 words.

 The "Introduction" is a brief paragraph or two that outlines the aim of the report and how the report is structured (i.e., what you are examining). The content of your assignment should generally reflect the marking criteria. REMEMBER that an Introduction is different to an Abstract.

 The "body" of the report is the content of your research and analysis. You may want to consider dividing you report into different sections with appropriate subheadings.

 You should begin the body of your work with a discussion of the current values of the four economic indicators under investigation (Economic Growth (GDP), Unemployment, Inflation and Trade) and the government targets for each of these. You should also discuss the trends in the economic variables over the past 10 years. This section is worth 20%.

Once you have discussed the variables you should discuss current macroeconomic (Fiscal and Monetary) policy in Australia. In addition to a description of policy you need to provide your assessment of the effectiveness of the policy. The effectiveness of macroeconomic policy will be determined by how close the current figures are to policy targets. For example, did Australia reach targets or not and/or how close has Australia been to meeting targets? You NEED to give your (well thought out) opinions about how well current macroeconomic policy is working based on the data obtained. You need to support your opinions with scholarly research to further enhance/prove/justify/confirm your findings. This section is worth 40%.

In your "Conclusion" you need to discuss what the future is for the economy (the strengths and/or threats) as well as canvass the policies you would recommend to ensure meeting the economic targets. You should again call upon scholarly research to further enhance/prove/justify/confirm your commentary in this section. This section is worth 20%.

A reminder: To complete your assignment you need to ensure you have used correct Harvard referencing throughout the report and that you have correctly formatted your reference list. Only include the references that you actually used in your report.  This section is worth 10%.

 There are a number of useful resources you can use to gather information but make sure you are using reliable sources. Useful sources of information might include the following web sites:

• Australian Bureau of Statistics < http://www.abs.gov.au>
• The Reserve Bank of Australia
• Treasury
• Department of Finance
• The Productivity Commission
• The World Trade Organization
• ABC News

Some newspaper sites may also be useful. For example, the Australian Financial Review, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian, the Guardian and other major newspapers. The editions around the time of economic policy announcements are especially useful.