ECON6600 Economics Capstone Assessment Component 2: Final Project presentation (1000 words) -Determinants of Firm Profitability
This document provides description of the major project that you are required to complete as part of this Economics Capstone unit. For your project, you will need to choose one topic from the set of research topics given below. This is an individual (and not a group) assessment task and hence you will need to carefully choose a topic that interests you and you have the required skill, experience and knowledge of economic analysis. Note that only broad topics are provided, and you are required to further specify the topic of your research. In the process of development of your specific topic, you will benefit from feedback from the teaching team and from your peers.
Formatting Guideline of your Final Project presentation: You will need to present the results of your research in this assessment. You can use MS powerpoint or any other software for your presentation and submit that file for assessment purposes. You can submit the ppt file as a supplementary document, but this is not mandatory. You should strictly maintain 1000-word limit of your presentation file.
Choose ONE of the following topics.
Topic 1: Pandemic Recovery, Ukraine-Russia War and Business Sustainability
The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant adverse impacts around the world. Among others, firms in the automobile and hospitality and leisure industries were particularly affected. While the firms in these industries have recovered well form the pandemic, Ukraine- Russia has exerted detrimental consequences on the energy intensive manufacturing industries. For your research project you can choose any one or two of these industries in the context of the world market or for any country of your choice. You are expected to examine the general pattern of impact of the COVID pandemic and the Ukraine-Russian war on the selected industry or the firms, highlighting the changes of market forces and the consequences in the market. You are expected to provide short and long run policy recommendations for the firms or industry based on your research findings.
Topic 2: Globalisation, Firms and Dynamic Comparative Advantages
With the advent of globalisation, under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), firms around the world have been experiencing intense competition with freer trade of goods and services as well as with freer cross border mobility of capital and labour. While the benefits of globalisation have been unequivocally realised in terms of the increased size of the global economic pie, firms in many industries have experienced major changes in their operative strategies and outsourcing decisions.
Using a specific industry or group of firms of your choice, you are required to examine the nature of impact of globalisation and the way the industry or the firms have adapted to the dynamics of competitive and comparative advantages. In your project, you can also refer to aspects of foreign direct investment (FDI) with reference to a multi-national company (MNC), the mitigation strategies the industry or the firms of your choice have adopted and the implications for policy for the firms, the industry and the government that could emanate from your research.
Topic 3: Determinants of Firm Profitability
An assumption in microeconomic analysis is that firms, as rational economic agents, try to maximise their profits. Therefore, profit or cost optimisation has been an integral part of microeconomic analytical model. While production costs depend on input prices, firms’ revenue generations depend on a range of demand sides factors. There are also other factors that affect firms’ profitability. There has been a plethora of studies in the extant literature that examine the magnitude and significance of the factors that affect firms’ profitability, as these tend to vary across industries, countries and regions.
In your analysis, you can draw on various demand and supply factors and other variables including firm size, input intensity, management structure and policy reform measures. You need to specifically show the novelty and contribution of your research. You can select firms in a specific industry in a selected economy. Otherwise, you can also select a specific company of your choice as a case study and examine it over time.
Additional information:
Research methods
You need to use your prior knowledge of economic analysis to complete your project. You can use a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, including econometric modelling technics. Your final project paper should look like a standard journal article. If you do a pure replication by applying the structure and method of a published work using data in another country and industry, you need to clearly mention this as a footnote on the first page of your paper, along with any note of acknowledgement that you may have.
Topic Selection
There will be limit to the number of students who will be allowed to select a topic from the three areas mentioned above. A topic will be approved for a maximum number of 15 students. You will be allowed to indicate your preferred topic in the discussion folder in canvas from Week 3 onwards. Topic allocations will continue until the maximum quota of 12 is reached.