Americans and Canadians Differ in Their Online Term Paper

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Americans and Canadians Differ in their Online Spending Habits?

It is no secret that the economies of most industrialized nations have been sluggish over the first part of the 21st century. However, consumer confidence in North America may be on the rise. For instance, according to a March 2012 Reuter report consumer confidence for Americans and Canadians remained stable as 26% of Americans (the highest level in over a year) and 28% of Canadians believed that their economies would improve over the next year. These figures are taken from the RBC U.S. Consumer Outlook Index and the RBC Canadian Consumer Outlook (RBC COI and RBC CCO respectively; Reuter, 2012). Of course this is really not as optimistic as the researchers depict it, because 26 or 28% does not represent a majority. Therefore, the real news is that the majority of citizens in these countries DO NOT believe there economy will improve. According to the same source the RBC Economics forecasted that the Canadian GDP would increase by 2.6% over 2012, whereas the U.S. GDP would increase by 2.5%, both strengthened by a rise in automobile sales and overall growth in consumer spending, which are mild improvements at best.

American and Canadian residents appeared to also have similar concerns regarding their personal financial situations. Both groups demonstrated a decrease in the numbers of citizens that believed their personal financial situations would improve. American consumers' outlook regarding their personal financial situation for the upcoming year dropped to 26% (a decrease of five percentage points), while slightly greater than one third of Canadians believed that their personal financial situation would improve in the upcoming year a decrease of two percentage points (Reuters, 2012).

Jason Round, the head of Financial Planning Support for the RBC Financial Planning Committee apparently shared consumer concern for their finances as he urged consumers to focus on managing their money and to develop a financial plan that emphasized includes investing and saving.

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He also recommended that families create and allow themselves an emergency fund by putting a convenient amount of money aside each pay period in case it is needed (Reuters, 2012). Despite their similar concerns regarding their economies Americans typically spend more than their northern neighbors on items like transportation, entertainment, and food, whereas Americans spend more on housing and healthcare than Canadians (Miller, 2011).

The internet is one of the fast growing mediums for consumer shopping in the world. Online shopping can range from essentials like food and clothing to luxury items. Given the access that both Americans and Canadians have to computers despite their similar stances on the states of their respective economies we would predict that Americans and Canadians would significantly differ regarding their online spending habits. In the present case we predict that Americans and Canadians would differ significantly in the amount of money they annually spend online.

Method

Participants

American participants were taken from a sample of U.S. citizens (n = 22) and data from a study of spending habits of Canadian citizens (n = 22).

Measures

The dependent variable was the total dollar amount spent online over the year by each of the levels of the independent (Americans and Canadians).

Procedure

Data for the Canadian subjects was taken from a separate study, whereas the data for the American subjects was collected directly. Mean values for online spending of both groups was calculated and entered into Microsoft Excel where a one sample t-test was calculated.

Results

The mean dollar annual value for online spending for the Canadian group was $780.00. The study from which the author collected that data from did not report the standard deviation or the sample size, so these were both estimated (s = 0.0; n = 22) as….....

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