ECON1193 – BUSINESS STATISTICS 1

SEMESTER 3 – 2021
Assignment 1: Individual case study on Descriptive Statistics

Assignment Cover Page

Course Code ECON1193

Course Name Business Statistics 1
Student Name Tran Quang Huy
Student ID S3927573
Data set GDP per capita growth rate – Netherlands and
France
Part 1:
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the economy of Netherlands deteriorated dramatically
and it was a crisis in 1982 when the GDP had decline seriously. But after a recovery from 1982,
the economic growth has become more balanced and the GDP per capita has been above the
mean value of the European Union since the late 1980s. The Dutch economy decreased by 3.8%
with GDP in 2020 and it was a biggest decline on record. Although the economic drop was the
largest in its history, it still favorably compares to other countries in Europe.

During the middle of 1970s to early 1980s, the GDP growth per capita of France was one
of the highest rate in Europe with 15 percentage Netherlands. Then, France was affected strongly
by the 2008 financial crisis like other countries. However, between 2008 and 2010, France was
better than other industrialized countries, with the drop of GDP at 2.2 percent while the Euro
area’s overall GDP declined 4 percent. In 2020, the French economy experienced its biggest
recession with GDP falling by 8.3% due to the effect of Covid 19 like most of countries which
has been suffered from this pandemic.

Part 2:

a.

GDP per capita growth rate (annual %) for Netherlands and France

800%
600%
400%
Economic Growth rate

200%
0%
1971 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
-200%
-400%
-600%
-800%
-1000%

Netherlands France
The line chart for economic growth rate (annual %) of Netherlands and France
 b.
(i),
Central Tendency Netherlands France
Mean 1.575 1.446
Median 1.769 1.607
Mode #N/A #N/A
Measures of Tendency of growth rate (annual %) for Netherlands and France

Suspected Outliers:
Q3 + 1.5*IQR Comparisons Maximum
Netherlands 5.424 > 4.575
France 5.862 > 5.516

Q1 – 1.5*IQR Comparisons Minimum

Netherlands -1.721 > -4.273
France -2.388 > -8.309

In terms of Mean, it is seemed to be a good measure to analyze in this study but there are
outliers in both Netherlands and France figures, which are lower than lower threshold. So
the value of average in two countries could be influenced and lead to the inaccurate
conclusion.
In fact, Mode is not affected by extreme values and it is not identified through the data
set. Therefore, Mode tendency is not considered as an appropriate way in this case.
Hence, Median is the most suitable measure in 3 Measures of Central Tendency in order
to analyze the data about economic growth rate. The Median which I mentioned above
indicate that the growth rate of Dutch is little higher than France’ economy in the middle
period.

c.
Variations Netherlands France
Range 8.848 13.825
Interquartile Range 1.786 2.062
Sample Variance 3.684 4.575
Standard Deviation 1.919 2.139
Coefficient of Variation 122% 148%
Measures of Variations of economic growth rate (annual %) for Netherlands and France

According to the table above, the figures demonstrate that all 5 measures of variations of
France are higher than Netherlands. Because there are outliers in both two countries’
economic growth rate, the Interquartile Range (IQR) could eliminate the extreme values
and it becomes an excellent measure to analyze the statistics. Besides, Range, Sample
Variance, Standard Deviation and CV are influenced by extreme values, therefore these
are not appropriate measures at all.
 Histogram of economic growth rate (annual %) for
Netherlands

Number of years
d.
40
Frequenc
30
Netherlands Bin y
20 Frequency
-8 0
Frequenc2 10
-4
France Bin 0 y 7 0
-8 -4 0 4 8 More
-8
4 381
-4 0 Bin
8 3
More 0 5
0
4 41
Histogram of economic growth rate (annual %)
8 3
Number of years

for France
More 0 50
Histogram of economic 40
growth rate (annual %) 30
Frequency
for Netherlands and 20
France 10
0
As can be seen from 2 -8 -4 0 4 8 More
histograms above, the Bin
growth rate scaled from
0% to 4% experienced the
most years in both 2 countries. In addition, the rate of France distributed wider than
Netherlands. The growth rate which was bigger than 0% to 4% accounted for 82% and
76% to Netherlands and France. The second most popular tendency of Dutch was the rate
between -4% and 0% at 7 years, more than 2 years compared with French in the same
scale.

e.

Minimum Q1 Median Q3 Maximum

Netherlands -4.273 0.958 1.769 2.745 4.575
France -8.309 0.706 1.607 2.768 5.516
 Box and Whisker plot for economic rate (annual %) for Netherlands and France

Netherlands
Left Comparisons Right
Box 0.811 < 0.975
Whisker 5.231 > 1.831
Median to extreme 6.042 > 2.806
values

As the data from the table above, the right box is longer than left (0.975 > 0.811), which
shows right skewed.
The left whisker is longer than right whisker (5.231 > 1.831), which shows left skewed
The range from Minimum to Median (6.042) is longer than Maximum to Median (2.806),
which shows left skewed.

Thus, the data conclude that the Netherlands’ distribution is left – skewed.

France
Left Comparisons Right
Box 0.901 < 1.162
Whisker 9.015 > 2.748
Median to extreme 9.916 > 3.909
values

The right box is longer than left box (1.162 > 0.901), which indicates right skewed
The right whisker is bigger than left whisker (9.015 > 2.748), which demonstrates the left
skewed
And the range from Median to Minimum is longer than the Median to Maximum (9.916
> 3.909), which shows left skewed.
 Therefore, it can be concluded that the distribution of France and Netherlands is left –
skewed.

Part 3:
Initially, the Mean as well as Median value of Netherlands (1.575) and (1.769) is higher
than France’s one (1.446) and (1.607). The figures demonstrate that the development proportion
of France is less than Netherlands in both average and the mean value in the 1971-2020 period.
Secondly, all 5 measures of variations of France were bigger than Netherlands, this
indicates that the growth rate of France stretched widely and unstable as Netherlands’s economy.
While Netherlands had only out outlier with the value of -4.273, France had two extreme
outliers: -8.309 and -3.372, and this leads to the larger range of 13.825 of France compared with
8.848 of Netherlands’s data.
Last but not least, although Netherlands experienced more years with the negative rate
than France (9 years compared with 6 years) in the histograms, the Dutch immediately recovered
after their economy met the recession while the French usually fluctuated after a huge decline in
growth rate as we can see in the line graph in Part 1.
In conclusion, although both Netherlands and France have experienced many fluctuations
in the past and also present, I believe that the Dutch has been a little greater than French in
economic growth.

Part 4:
In part 1, I mentioned that in the period of early 1980s years, Netherlands was in trouble
with their economy whereas France improved better compared with other countries. In the next
stage, the economy of Netherlands and France fluctuated a lot and these changes were quite
equivalent from late 1980s to the middle of 2000s. Then between 2008 and 2010, both two
countries were dipped into financial crisis but France was declined a little less than Netherlands
(as the data mentioned in Part 1). In the recent years, the effect of Covid 19 has brought many
problems to many countries. The growth rate of economy for France decreased by 8.3% and it
was around 4% to Netherlands.
The result that I supposed in Part 3 have some differences from the brief overview
mentioned in Part 1. There are still some phases that France had a better development to
Netherlands but the data collected in Part 2 and Part 3 was an analysis for the whole period and
it could lead to an objective conclusion.

Part 5:
In my own opinion, there are several circumstances that could affect the economic
growth of a particular country.
Firstly, the economic growth in Netherlands would depend much on a politic or
international trade conflict like Brexit occurred in the early of 2020, which affected heavily on
Dutch economy. It influenced to the trade relations between US and EU with Dutch net exports
and decreased the GDP growth.
 Secondly, the geograhical location plays a significant role in the improvement of
economy in Netherlands. Its location allow Dutch to have a priority to access with England and
Germany market, moreover, Armsterdam attracted a lot of tourists per year and the tourism
would help government to stimulate the economy considerably.

About France, the development of agriculture plays a crucial part in economy in this
country. French has grown many kinds of food in order to export to many countries and these
products account for a large amount of GDP growth in recent years.
Another factor is that the policies of government, it could have a big role on economic
growth in many field like tax, monetary policy, or timely strict rules in particular occasion, for
example locking down the country or regions in the Pandemic.