ECON705 Individual Report
Housing Affordability Analysis
2024/25
Objectives
This assignment is designed to simulate real-world economic challenges, focusing on a critical issue: housing affordability. It mirrors tasks you might encounter in job interviews and assessments for roles requiring data analysis expertise. You will work with a dataset on house prices, earnings, and affordability ratios across England and Wales, using R for data importation, cleaning, transformation, and visualisation. In addition to showcasing your technical skills, your report should reflect a deep understanding of housing affordability and demonstrate your ability to think critically, just as a data analyst or economist would in the field.
Information
Submission Deadline: Wednesday, 13 November 2024, 12:00 GMT
Assessment Weight: 20%
Submission Format: Online via CANVAS, consisting of 3 separate files:
1. REPORT in Word format
2. CODES in R Script.
3. Cleaned and produced DATA file
Failure to submit any of the supplementary files (item 2 and 3) will result in a deduction of marks: 10 marks will be deducted for a missing R script, and another 10 marks for the absence of the final data file.
Submission Instruction: Submit your assignment through CANVAS. Note that you are allowed only TWO submission attempts. Ensure all required files are attached before clicking the submit button. For guidance on how to attach multiple files in a single submission, please refer to the instructions below.
Topic: Housing Affordability Analysis - An Examination of House Prices and Earnings in England and Wales
In this project, you will explore the evolution of house prices, earnings, and housing affordability in England and Wales. Some potential areas of focus include:
• How have house prices and earnings evolved over time, and what can you infer about affordability trends?
• Are there noticeable regional differences in house prices and earnings? How do affordability ratios compare across regions or local authorities?
• Have house prices and earnings been converging or diverging across regions? How do these trends impact housing affordability?”
You are encouraged to formulate your own specific research questions, explore different visualisation techniques, and consider multiple perspectives in your analysis.
Data
You are provided with data spanning from 1997 to 2022. This data contains two key variables: median house price and median annual earnings. The dataset spatially covers 9 regions in England, plus Wales, amounting to 10 subnational geographies. Additionally, data for 331 local authority districts in England and Wales is included.
Note that the affordability ratio can be computed by dividing the median house price by median earnings. Source: Office for National Statistics (https://www.ons.gov.uk/)
Report Guidelines
Your report should offer an in-depth analysis tailored to the data and questions you have chosen to investigate. Compile your analysis, findings, and visualisations into a detailed report with a maximum length of 1,000 words. Note that this word count does not include abstract (or non-technical summary), graphs, tables, code snippets, data, and references. For the R codes, it’s advisable to submit it separately in an R Script. file. Essential tables and graphs must be incorporated into your report as they serve as critical tools for communicating your analysis to your audience. Directing readers to separate code or R Script. files for tables or graphs is not acceptable!
Grading Rubric
Grading will be based on the relevance of your analysis to this case study, the clarity and efficiency of your R code, and the coherence of your written explanations.
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Criteria
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Ratings
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Points
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Structure, Style, and Presentation
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20 pts
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Depth of Understanding and Critical Analysis
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30 pts
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Effective Coding to Deliver Meaningful Analysis
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30 pts
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Quality of Research and Use of Sources
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20 pts
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