Assignment: Getting Your Research Project Started

30 May 2016

After looking through the codebook for the GapMinder data, I have decided that I am particularly interested in GDP per capita and how it corelates with different types of consumption. The codebook is pretty short, so I can include the entire thing in my personal codebook.

I watched the very interesting video Don’t Panic on the GapMinder website, and it got me interested in how GDP per capita correlates to different variables. In particular, at about 46:30, they show a few examples of infant mortality rate being a leading indicator for a take-off in GDP per capita growth. I’d like to investigate that further, but lacking historical data for now, I will have to make do with point-in-time associations.

I will focus on the association between GDP and different types of consumption (alcohol consumption per adult, CO2 emissions, Internet users, and oil consumption per capita).

Existing literature

This is a fairly well covered field of research. I searched for correlation between gdp per capita and consumption and found several articles on the subject.

In Causality relationship between electricity consumption and GDP in Bangladesh[1] they found that there was a causal relationship from per capita GDP to per capita energy consumption.

However, Energy consumption and GDP: causality relationship in G-7 countries and emerging markets[2] found causality running in the opposite direction.

Manufacturing Epidemics: The Role of Global Producers in Increased Consumption of Unhealthy Commodities Including Processed Foods, Alcohol, and Tobacco[3] seems to indicate that increased GDP is correlated with increased consumption of “unhealthy commodities”, but only up to a point, where it becomes a weaker correlation.

Hypothesis

My hypothesis is that there is a correlation between GDP and consumption of alcohol, co2, internet, and oil, but that that correlation becomes weaker as GDP rises.

References

[1] Mozumder, Pallab, and Achla Marathe. “Causality relationship between electricity consumption and GDP in Bangladesh.” Energy policy 35.1 (2007): 395-402.

[2] Soytas, Ugur, and Ramazan Sari. “Energy consumption and GDP: causality relationship in G-7 countries and emerging markets.” Energy economics 25.1 (2003): 33-37.

[3] Stuckler, David, et al. “Manufacturing epidemics: the role of global producers in increased consumption of unhealthy commodities including processed foods, alcohol, and tobacco.” PLoS Med 9.6 (2012): e1001235.