Assignment Brief/Context

You are a business analyst working for a leading independent New Zealand business consultancy firm – “712 Consultants”.

Dr Wang would like you to analyse the WHOLE dataset provided using regression as well as descriptive methods of analysis. Therefore, your analysis should include a brief analysis of descriptive statistics (such as mean, median, standard deviation, correlation, distribution, confidence interval, hypothesis testing etc.) as well as visualisations of the data and regression results as the key focus.

Detailed Tasks

You are required to answer the following questions by using regressions:

1. What factors affect New Zealand’s food exports? And how?

2. Can Free Trade Agreement (FTA) help New Zealand export more food to its trade 4 partners?

3. How has COVID-19 affected New Zealand exports? (e.g. overall vs. each export item)

4. Can FTA offset the negative effect of COVID-19 on New Zealand exports? Or Can FTA boost the positive effect of COVID-19 on New Zealand exports? If so, how?

You can construct a single regression model to answer all four questions, or, alternatively, build separate models to address each question individually.

For this Project, you can collect some additional variables (e.g. dummy of FTA, GDP of each country, etc.) to answer the above questions. Furthermore, you may also derive new variables (e.g. GDP per capita=GDP/Population Size) by using the existing and collected additional data if needed.

Your manager would like you to address the questions above by submitting a 2000-word written report.

Format of the report:

Please use a professional report structure that includes an executive summary, introduction, main body, conclusion (insights from the findings and recommendations to the policymakers), and reference list. Organise your work using headings and sub-headings, and carefully check your grammar and punctuation. You can find more detailed information about the structure of a report from here:
https://www.grammarly.com/blog/how-to-write-a-report/

Graphs, tables and charts:

Graphs, tables and charts should be produced using Excel or other statistical software. Please note that graphs, tables and charts should be selected and created carefully, and when included, must be discussed in your presentation.

References:

You should use a minimum of 4 references in APA 7 format to support your analysis