Take-home assignment – MBA 1133 Statistics for Business

You should answer all questions by writing a short report containing tabulated results and
plots. For each question give a short description of what the plots and tables show in your
report. Start a new paragraph for each question, and put the heading. All graphical
presentation and descriptive statistics should be done in excel and resulted outcome shoul be
directly copied to the report (word doc). Your report is due by 16.00 on 31st July 2017, and
should be e-mail to bandulapmb@yahoo.com. Late submissions will be penalized: 20% for
the first day late and 10% for every subsequent day late.

Problem I
Your task in this part of the assignment is to explore datasets and describe what you find out.
Present following data using suitable chart/graphs or other presentation tool.

a) Population of Sri Lanka by ethnic groups (as at 2016 est.)

Ethnic group No. %
Sinhalese 16654015 74.9
Sri Lankan Tamil 2490320 11.2
Sri Lankan Moors 2045620 9.2
Indian Tamil 933870 4.2
Other 111175 0.5
Total 22,235,000 100

b) Age structure of the population by sex (2016 est.)

Age group Male Female Total
0-14 years 2,760,821 2,652,747 5,413,568
15-24 years 1,660,402 1,608,022 3,268,424
25-54 years 4,544,253 4,729,544 9,273,797
55-64 years 1,018,357 1,181,060 2,199,417
65 years and over 882,740 1,197,054 2,079,794

c) Population growth rate in last 15 years

Year Growth rate (%)
2000 0.89
2001 0.87
2002 0.85
2003 0.83
2004 0.81
2005 0.79
2006 0.78
2007 0.98
2008 0.94
2009 0.9
2010 0.86
2011 0.93
2012 0.91
2013 0.89
2014 0.86
 d) Real GDP growth rate and inflation rate in last 15 year
Year Real GDP growth rate Inflation Rate (%)
(%)
2000 5.6 8.5
2001 -1.5 14.2
2002 3.2 9.6
2003 5.5 6.3
2004 5.2 5.8
2005 6 11.6
2006 7.5 12.1
2007 6.8 15.8
2008 6 22.6
2009 3.5 3
2010 9.1 5.6
2011 8.2 7
2012 6.4 7.5
2013 6.3 4.7
2014 7.6 3.2

Problem II
You are part of an analytical team working for a large investment bank. Management is
considering two investments: A or B. Before doing so, they have asked your team to prepare
a report on the risk and return profiles of these two investments. You will use descriptive
statistics and your knowledge of continuous distributions to complete this task.

The returns data (measured annually) for the two investments are as follows
Period Investment A Investment B
1 3.6 5.1
2 4.5 4.8
3 5.2 4.3
4 5.8 4.2
5 4.6 5.1
6 4.8 4.2
7 2.3 3.6
8 4.6 4.5
9 5.1 4.2
10 3.8 4.1

Estimate descriptive statistics for each investment via Excel. Compare the two investments.
Be sure to comment on the central tendency, variability and shape of these two investments
Based on your findings, which investment would you choose and why?
Problem III
Measures on monthly household income and expenditure in Sri Lanka (201/2013) are shown
in following tables

Source: Department of Census & Statistics (2015). House hold income and expenditure survey 2012/2013,
Department of Census and Statistics, Sri Lanka
Source: Department of Census & Statistics (2015). House hold income and expenditure survey 2012/2013,
Department of Census and Statistics, Sri Lanka.

Describe and compare the patterns of house hold income and expenditure of Sri Lanka
(201/2013) by sector, province and district. (Note: appropriate measures should be used to
support your findings)