Big Data: Final Project Aidan Donohue & Justina Breen December 4, 2015

Our Initial Questions  How did the U.S. perform during the financial crisis in 2008 compared to countries with similar economies?  Which strategies did the U.S. utilize during the recession?  Which strategies were successful? Which were not?  Which strategies should be implemented next time a world- wide financial crisis occurs?

Our Data Sets  Worldbank.org  (Aidan)

GDP Growth Visualization

Unemployment Rate Visualization

Unemployment Rate (without Spain)

Regression Results - GDP

Regression Results – Unemployment

Conclusions  According to our model, had the U.S. doubled its growth in federal spending, the model predicts that the U.S. economy would have grown by 1.92 percent in 2009 instead of shrinking by 2.78 percent  Lowering interest rates and increasing government spending are strongly correlated to increasing GDP growth  Not confident about conclusions for the effects of changes in taxes due to poor data  While some meaningful conclusions can be drawn from the model, it is vastly oversimplified and needs better and more data to produce substantial results