ETC1000

BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC

STATISTICS

3. Descriptive Analytics Preparing the Data

DATA TYPES
Data

Numerical

Discrete
(count)

Continuous
(measure)

Categorical

Qualitative

DESCRIPTIVE ANALYTICS

Always start with a Question of Interest

Make sure you are dealing with data that is
relevant for the question
Data might have to be scaled or adjusted before
meaningful descriptions can be made

SCALING
DATA
eg
CO2 emissions:
(kilotonnes pa)

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator

SCALING
DATA
CO2 emissions
(tonnes
per capita pa)

SCALING DATA

When might it be appropriate to use total CO2

emissions data?
When might it be better to use per capita
emissions data?

SCALING OTHER TYPES OF

SCALING

Obtaining Relative measures

percentages,
proportions,
rates of return,
per-person,
per-hectare,
per employee,
per dollar invested,
etc

Adjusting for price differences / inflation

eg Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Australia:
Are we really producing almost 4 times more in 2013
compared to 1990?

SCALING ADJUSTING FOR INFLATION

AUSTRALIAS GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP
($MILLIONS PER QUARTER)

SCALING ADJUSTING FOR

INFLATION

Nominal / Actual / Current Prices: the $$

value of a series as actually measured at each
point in time.
Real / Constant Prices: the value a series
would have taken if prices remained fixed at
some point in history the Base period.
Consumer Price Index (CPI): A weighted
average of prices of consumer items, indexed to
100 in the base period.

Nominal
Real
(CPI / 100)

SCALING ADJUSTING FOR

INFLATION - CPI

CPI & Inflation (annual)

SCALING: GDP NOMINAL AND REAL

SCALING: GDP NOMINAL AND REAL

The real economy has more than doubled

between 1990 and 2013.
Note where Nominal and Real GDP are similar
the year the CPI has its base of 100.
Note the Nominal series has had the seasonal
pattern removed so trend is more easily seen.