Department of Economics ECN6620 Assignment
经济学系ECN6620作业

The assignment accounts for 50 % of the total mark for this module and students must achieve a minimum of 40 % in order to pass the module overall. The assignment must be submitted to the Enquiry Office by 3 p.m. on Tuesday 3rd May 2011. Extensions will only be granted in the most exceptional circumstances and must be agreed with me in advance. 

为了通过整体模块，此模块总的标记和学生占50％的分配必须达到一个最低的40％。作业必须在2011年5月3日周二三点前提交查询处。扩展将只被授予在最特殊的情况下，必须事先征得我同意。

The assignment should not normally be longer than 3000 words (excluding bibliography, tables and any data appendices for type (a) assignments), but not less than 2000 words and must be word processed and written in clear English (please get someone else to check your draft before submitting if necessary). You should email an outline of no more than one page to me by Friday 18th March setting out your proposed topic and how you intent to tackle it. I will provide individual feedback on this by email but you are welcome to discuss it further with me during Consultation times.
作业通常不应该超过3000字（不包括参考书目，表格和任何数据类型附录（一）作业）长，但不低于2000字，必须处理和清晰的英语写的字（请让别人检查草案之前提交，如果必要的话）。你应该发送电子邮件给我3月18日（星期五）设置你的建议的主题和你的意图来解决它的轮廓不超过1页。我会在此电子邮件提供个性化的反馈，但欢迎您进一步讨论，我在咨询时间。

Unauthorised  late  submissions  will incur  a  penalty  of  5  %  of  the  mark  per  day  for  five working  days;  any  submissions  after  that  time  will  receive  a  mark  of  zero.  A  Turnitin submission should be made within five working days of the paper copy deadline.  Failure to submit an assignment to Turnitin by this date will lead to a zero mark for the assignment.
 
Plagiarism: as with all assessed work, and as outlined in the course handbook, plagiarism is strictly prohibited.  Any quotations must be fully acknowledged and not form a substantial proportion of the assignment. Any data sources must be clearly indicated.
 
Assignments must be referenced in accordance with the Harvard style; any work referred to in the text must be referenced in the bibliography and marks will be deducted from assignments where referencing is incomplete. Details of the Harvard referencing system can be found via the library web pages:

The choice of topic is up to you provided that it falls within the subject matter covered in this module should be of one of the following types:

 
a) Testing econometrically a theory of exchange rate determination for specified currencies since general floating. You may repeat any theoretically justified function - many are suggested in the available literature.  Your first consideration is availability of data and so, as far as possible, you should restrict yourself to functions for which data is readily available, e.g. from IMF, International Financial Statistics.  This is available in the library both in hard copy and on-line via Library e-resources through ESDS International. This should be an exercise in international finance as much as an example of applied econometrics:  first, you should not simply report your findings, but comment on their implications for the theory; second, you should be sensitive to the macroeconomic developments that lie behind the data you are testing.  Graphical presentation and inspection of the data is encouraged. 

Further, you should display some familiarity with macroeconomic developments with your country’s currency (and hence its movement against Dollar or whichever currency you choose).  A basic source of information is the OECD Economic Surveys of member countries, published every 2-3 years and available in the library.
Department of Economics    ECN6620
 
b) Outline a major theory of exchange rate determination and critically survey the results of past econometric tests of it. This might seem an easier option.  However, low marks will be awarded for simply reproducing the basic theory and summarising the econometric tests of it cited in the literature.  Nor will much be gained by extensive description of such tests. 

Instead you need to go beyond simply reporting the results of the tests to showing where the limitations of the theory lie: which of its underlying assumptions fail to hold, hold weakly or only hold in the long run and, based on your understanding of the theory, what implications does this have for the power of the theory in explaining real world developments?
 
c) Examine a key recent development or policy issue in this area. This would involve setting out the relevant theory and examining how far it helps explain recent developments and can illuminate policy debates. It must include core theory and should not be primarily descriptive and/or speculative about possible future developments.
 

Hints:

Introduction - this should set out what is the question and how will it be addressed. It is often useful to set yourself a specific question to be answered rather than just a general topic; this will hope focus your work.  The introduction should justify why the question is important, set out the approach you will take and explain why it is appropriate.

Any tables/figures must be properly labelled and sourced.
任何表/数字必须正确标注来源。

The argument made should be logical and come to a coherent conclusion. Any discussion of models should assess their strengths and limitations. A clear understanding of the model will set out what one would expect to find in testing, what its implications are.#p#分页标题#e#
提出的论点应该是逻辑和连贯结论。任何讨论车型应该评估自己的长处和局限性。清楚地了解该模型将载什么人会想到，在测试中找到，它的含义是什么。

If you are using econometrics and/or models this must be accurate and applicable to your example. This entails both showing how the econometrics provides a test of the model and any econometric issues (e.g. time series properties of the data).

Discussion of data and analysis: summary statistics; description of techniques used; analysis of results: does it support or contradict the argument?

Organization: Intro/theory implications evidence conclusions
组织：介绍/理论的影响证据的结论

Basic Reading: Textbooks and indicative reading, plus: Maurice Obstfeld and Alan Taylor,
Global Capital Markets (2004); relevant chapters of Gene Grossman and Kenneth Rogoff,
Handbook of International Economics: Volume III (1995). Please use library web resources and EconLit searches. Survey articles may be available in journals such as Journal of Economic Literature and Journal of Economic Surveys.
基本阅读：课本和指示读数，再加上：莫里斯Obstfeld和阿伦泰勒，全球资本市场（2004年）;吉恩•格罗斯曼和肯尼斯•罗格夫的相关章节，国际经济学手册“第三卷（1995年）。请使用图书馆的网络资源和EconLit资料库搜索。调查文章可能是在期刊上，如经济文学期刊和中国经济调查。