1. Have incomes and living standards in the world become more or less equal in the last 20 years? (Refer to the reading: Piketty, Thomas et al, World Inequality Reports– available online, eg for 2018: https://wir2018.wid.world/

See also the CORE Doing Economics exercise on Measuring Inequality.

2. Is it desirable to collect data on/by ethnicity.? Discuss using specific examples from a country for which data on/by ethnicity is available (eg UK or US).

Note: In assessing ‘desirability’, you can consider whether the collection and publication of data have desirable social and political consequences, and also issues about the ‘integrity’ of the data (e.g. the development of multiple categories and the campaigns to add more categories) and how the data are interpreted in public debate.  (Refer to the reading: Farkas, L (2017) Data collection in the field of ethnicity. Analysis and comparative review of equality data collection practices in the European Union. Luxembourg: European Comission.

Kertzer, D and D Arel (eds) (2002) Census and identity: The politics of race, ethnicity and language in national censuses CUP. Most of the introduction is online here.

Lowenthal, T (2014) ‘Race and ethnicity in the 2020 Census: Improving Data to Capture a Multiethnic America‘, Report for the Leadership Conference Education Fund

Migration Observatory (2015) Who counts as a migrant? Definitions and their consequences

Sillitoe, K., & White, P. (1992). Ethnic Group and the British Census: The Search for a Question. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (Statistics in Society), 155(1), 141-163.

3. How should poverty be measured in the UK (or another developed country of your choice)? Is poverty still a relevant issue? (Refer to the reading: Lanchester, John (2019) ‘Good new idea: John Lanchester makes the case for a Universal Basic Income’ in London Review of BooksVol 41 No 14, 18 July

McGuinness, Feargal (2016) ‘Poverty in the UK: statistics‘, House of Commons Library Briefing Paper Number 7096, 16 June                                                         Scott, James C.  (2017) ‘Take your pick‘, London Review of Books, Vol 39, No 20, 19 Oct

4. Design, conduct and analyse your own survey. (Check your topic and questionnaire with the module convenor, and aim to get about 20 responses. Submit the questionnaire as an appendix to your analysis.) Read some of the guidelines on doing a survey: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/mp/survey-guidelines/

Assignments 1-3 use the standard level 4 assessment criteria, ie Relevance, Coverage, Accuracy, Structure and organisation, Quality of argumentation and critical evaluation, Quality of expression and presentation. The assessment for assignment 4 uses the following headings:

1. Formulation of topic and development of questions
2. Conduct of the survey including ethical issues
3. Discussion and interpretation of findings: Accuracy/ adequacy/ insightfulness
4. Style/ Referencing (see referencing guidelines below)

Giving references to data

Data are not normally referenced in the same way as books or articles. Instead, the source is named in the text or in a footnote (eg World Bank, World Development Indicators; or UN, Human Development Indicators) and then other details – the series used, the date etc – are included in the table or graph or line of text where the data are given. Here are some examples:

1. When data are presented in a table or graph

Give the source underneath the table or graph. The heading of the graph and the series labels are part of the referencing; if they don’t make clear exactly which data you have used, you should add more information in the source note. For instance, in the following example, the heading ‘European Central Bank balance sheet’ is clear and the three lines are labelled, but the footnote adds information about the measurement and scale of the data (‘billions of local currency’). This could have been put along the vertical axis of the graph, in which case it would not have to be specified in the note underneath the graph.

Figure 1: European Central Bank balance sheet, 2007- mid 2015

Source: IMF International Financial Statistics, end-of-month values, in billions of local currency.

2. When data are mentioned in the text:

(a) You can put a footnote giving the source. Again, as above, the footnote might also contain more precise information on the data series used. Eg:

Text:

Average income levels in the world’s richest and poorest nations differ by a factor of more than 100. Sierra Leone, the poorest economy for which we have national income statistics, has a per-capita GDP of $490, compared to Luxembourg’s $50,061.(1)

Footnote

1. These are figures for 2000, and they are expressed in current “international” dollars, adjusted for PPP differences. The source is the World Development Indicators of the World Bank.

(b) You can describe the data and source in the text itself, eg

Text

The total fertility rate (number of births per woman) is defined as ‘the number of children that would be born to a woman if she were to live to the end of her childbearing years and bear children in accordance with prevailing age-specific fertility rates’. The data are taken from World Bank’s World Development Indicators.

Two things to remember:

1. The basic principle is to give sufficient information that your readers are able to find the data you’ve used, should they want to.
2. The labelling of a graph or table is part of the referencing. Make sure your graphs have accurate graph and series titles. If you need to shorten the titles for presentational reasons, be sure to give the full title in the source note underneath the graph.