24|POWERBI – GDP Deep Dive

[Spencer]

BYU Student Author: @Spencer
Reviewers: @Brett_Lowe, @DylanKing, @MitchFrei
Estimated Time to Solve: 25 Minutes

We provide the solution to this challenge using:

• Power BI

Need a program? Click here.

Overview
How could you forget!? Your ECON 220 GDP project is due today! Fortunately, it may not be too late. You’ve just sat down to eat lunch and have about 20 minutes before class begins. Frantically, you whip open your laptop and begin thinking. What in the world could you possibly do with GDP data in the next 25 minutes?

Instructions
You have been provided with World Bank Data on GDP per capita. Your job is to take this data and create an area chart in Power BI. On the y-axis, you will plot the difference between a selected country’s GDP per capita and the World’s GDP per capita (selected country GDP minus World GDP). On your x-axis, you will have all the years the World Bank has data for (1960 – 2021). The selected country your area chart displays will be dependent on a slicer that you must place next to your chart. Thus, if you select “Chile” in the slicer, then your chart must only show data for Chile from 1960 – 2021. Oh, and one other thing…you cannot manipulate the GDP data in Excel. All data manipulation must be done in Power BI.

Data Files

• Challenge24_GDP_Dataset.xlsx
• Challenge24_Data_Dictionary.docx

Suggestions and Hints

1. Use Power BI’s Power Query to manipulate the data. If you get stuck, click on this link.
2. There is an option under “Country Name” for “World”. Use this as the World GDP per capita from 1960 – 2021.
3. When subtracting country GDP per capita from World GDP per capita, consider using the CALCULATE function.
4. If you have created your chart and done your calculations correctly, Chile’s GDP per capita minus World GDP per capita for 2021 should be $4,030.30.

Solution

Solution Image

Challenge24_Solution.pbix
Solution Video: Challenge 24|POWERBI – GDP Deep Dive

[IWillyerd]

Fun Challenge! I’m still pretty new to PowerBI and it was fun learning a little bit more functionality within the software. Here’s what my solution ended up looking like.

[Alex_Garrett]

Wow I didn’t realize how much you can transform data within Power BI! For a second, I wish I was allowed to use Alteryx, but then I did some investigating and learned some new tricks. Great challenge!

[Boston]

Fun challenge! I have never used the calculate formula before. Editing in Power BI is a cool trick as well! Well done!

[Margaret_Christ]

This is a really nice PowerBI activity. It provides a nice introduction to PowerQuery. I’m going to use it in my class at UGA.

[Sterling_Lane]

This was a fantastic reminder for me at how much real data manipulation you can do in Power Query without having to rely on other tools beforehand.

[C-Hunsucker]

Fun Activity!