1
ECON7021 Individual Assignment 1
Macroeconomic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic: A comparison

Assessment Task Individual Assignment 1
Research essay
Weighting 25% of course (100 marks reweighted to 25%)
Word Limit 1000 words, excluding cover sheet and reference section
Due Date 13 May 2022, 4 pm
Marking Rubric Blackboard > Assessment > Individual Assignment 1 > Marking Rubric
Submission Turnitin via course Blackboard site (see details on page 6)
Academic Integrity UQ has strict rules against academic misconduct, including cheating,
plagiarism, and solicitation. You have a responsibility to maintain the
highest standards of academic integrity in your work. Please read and
familiarise yourself with these rules: PPL 3.60.01 Student Code of
Conduct and PPL 3.60.04 Student Integrity and Misconduct.


Context

The COVID-19 pandemic forced most countries to pursue social distancing practices, close
borders for international travel, and shut down business venues such as cafes, restaurants, gyms,
and cinemas for public gatherings. As a result, governments and central banks worldwide
implemented various policy actions to limit the contraction of their economies and speed up their
recovery.

The global economy contracted by 3.1% in 2020 (compared to a 0.1% global contraction during the
2009 Global Financial Crisis). However, the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) World Economic
Outlook, published in October 2021, showed the global economy recovered strongly in 2021,
growing by an estimated 5.9%.

In this assessment task, you need to compare the macroeconomic impact of the COVID-19
pandemic and the fiscal and monetary policies implemented in response to the pandemic for the
two allocated countries.

2
Task

For the two allocated countries, compare the macroeconomic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic
and the fiscal and monetary policies implemented in response to the pandemic.

Your essay should include up to three (3) figures (diagrams, graphs, or tables) in total. Note the
following stipulations:
• You can use a mixture of diagrams, graphs, and tables, provided the total number is no
more than three.
• You can include more than one variable in a graph or table.
• You must produce your own figures rather than cut and paste them from other sources.
• Insert figures as images rather than Excel objects in your document.


Country Allocation

The countries you must use for this essay are based on the last digit of your student number.
So, for example, if your student number is 44194356, then you need to compare the
macroeconomic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Italy and Spain.

Last digit Country
0 or 1 Canada and Netherlands
2 or 3 France and Sweden
4 or 5 Germany and Switzerland
6 or 7 Italy and Spain
8 or 9 Belgium and Japan

PLEASE NOTE: The number in your student email address (e.g., S4419435) is not your student
number; it misses the last digit (i.e., 6 in this example). A 10-mark penalty (out of 100 marks)
will be applied if you fail to follow the country allocation rules.


3
Assignment Structure

The following is your guide to researching and writing your essay.

PLEASE NOTE: You must use the assignment template on Blackboard > Assessment >
Individual Assignment 1 > Assignment Template.

Formatting requirements:
• Font type: Arial
• Font size: 11
• Line space: 1.5
• 1000 words, excluding the cover sheet and references

Referencing style: APA (7th edition) or UQ Harvard

You can use direct quotes provided the total number of quoted words sums to 20 words or
less in the whole research essay.

The assignment template includes a cover sheet. You must complete and include this cover
sheet with your submissions. A penalty will be applied if you fail to do so. Do not write your
essay on the cover page. Instead, the first page of your essay should be the page after the
coversheet (as it is in the template).

The word count excludes:
• Cover sheet
• Figures
• Figure headings
• Source notes underneath figures [E.g., Source: WDI (2022)]
• Reference list

The word count includes in-text citations, footnotes, and endnotes.


4
Macroeconomic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic: A comparison
(Maximum 1000 words)

In the introduction of the essay, briefly introduce the two countries by comparing their
economies before the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the body of the essay, compare the macroeconomic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on
the two countries by assessing their macroeconomic performance before and during the
pandemic based on key macroeconomic indicators. Also, compare the key fiscal and monetary
policies that the two countries implemented in response to the pandemic. Finally, indicate
whether these policies successfully alleviated the adverse impacts of the pandemic by referring
to the macroeconomic indicators.

In the conclusion of the essay, indicate which of the two countries handled the pandemic best
based on your economic analysis.

TIPS:
• You should consider economic data before and during the pandemic. As a minimum,
you need to look at annual data for 2019 (before the pandemic) and 2020 to 2021
(during the pandemic).
• Your comparison of macroeconomic indicators before and during the pandemic
should consider at least these three macroeconomic indicators: GDP growth,
inflation, and the unemployment rate.
• Create and include graphs and tables and refer to these to support your writing.
• You should not explain the concepts and definitions of commonly used
macroeconomic indicators.
• You may need to mention the countries’ non-economic responses to the pandemic
(e.g., social distancing and closing the international borders) and how it affected their
economies.
• The IMF Policy Tracker records the policy responses to COVID-19 by country.
• If there are many policy actions, you could list them but focus on the key ones for
discussion.
• You are not required to use economic models or theories in this assessment.

References

References and citations must be in APA (7th edition) or UQ Harvard referencing style.

5
TIPS:
• Use credible sources, e.g., the World Bank’s World Development Indicators (WDI).
• Consult the APA 7th referencing style guide or the UQ Harvard referencing style guide.
• You must reference sources for your text, graphs, or tables.
• You must reference even when you have paraphrased the original content.
• If you directly quote the original content word by word, it must be in quotation marks.
• When to paraphrase and when to quote? This guide from the University of Adelaide
may be helpful to you.

Accessing Data

Your primary data sources should be national or multinational agencies, e.g., The World Bank,
OECD, IMF, and the Bank for International Settlements. Data from secondary sources may be
used as a supplement only if those data are not available from any primary sources. If you use
non-primary data when primary source data is available, it can lead to a loss of marks.

The World Bank’s World Development Indicators (WDI) database contains most national data
collected by national and multinational agencies, and you may use it as a primary data source.
Here are some YouTube tutorials on how to extract data from the WDI:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGJhI_YqFuI (7 March 2019)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_B1t4BRQ94&t=64s (22 September 2018)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKANl-ZWUTY (9 March 2017)

PLEASE NOTE:
• Do not falsely claim that specific data are not readily available from a primary source
without doing your due diligence. Only national or multinational agencies have the
capacity to collect data at the national level (e.g., GDP and unemployment rate).
Therefore, it is doubtful that these data are available from a secondary source but not
from a primary source.
• If you use data from a source (e.g., a report) that indicates it drew the data from a
government statistical bureau, your data is from a secondary source, not a primary
source. However, if you go to the government statistical bureau and extract the same
data (and verify what you read is indeed accurate), then it is considered to have come
from a primary source.
• WDI data are on an annual basis. For monthly or quarterly data, you need to access
statistics directly from the countries’ statistical bureaus and central banks.
6
Submitting Your Assignment

• Your essay must be submitted as a Microsoft Word document through Turnitin on
Blackboard to check for plagiarism. While most instances of plagiarism are unintentional
(e.g., forgetting to close a quotation mark), the originality report will reveal any form of
plagiarism (intentional or unintentional).
Your essay should have a similarity index value of 15% or less. From the originality
report, the marker will check whether any part of your essay is potentially plagiarised from
other sources. Therefore, you should carefully review the originality report before your final
submission.
• After uploading your essay, you must click on the Submit to Turnitin button. Then,
download your digital receipt in your Assignment inbox to confirm successful submission
(refer to the Turnitin Student guide). UQ ITS rule: No digital receipt, no submission.
• The deadline for submission is based on the time your assignment has been successfully
uploaded on Turnitin as recorded by Turnitin, not the time you tried to upload it.
• Many students fail to meet the deadline because they have internet connection problems
on their side, but they mistake it as an IT problem of UQ. If UQ has any internet connection
problems, it will keep a record of it.
• The only way to guarantee not missing the deadline is to submit your assignment well
before the deadline.
• Having more in-text citations and references will reduce the number of words for the main
body. But having too few in-text citations and references will lessen the credibility of the
essay. Therefore, you need to balance the two.
• There is a penalty if the number of words exceeds the word limit (see Rubric for details). In
addition to the penalty specified in the Rubric, the marker will not read beyond 1000 words.
Thus, the marker will ignore words over the word limit.