An Economist's Guide to Visualizing Data

Abstract

Once upon a time, a picture was worth a thousand words. But with online news, blogs, and social media, a good picture can now be worth so much more. Economists who want to disseminate their research, both inside and outside the seminar room, should invest some time in thinking about how to construct compelling and effective graphics.

Providing Public Servants What They Need: Revealing the “Unseen” through Data Visualization

“…The Tampa Bay Times piece establishes its purpose before the very first click: “Police are more likely to shoot if you are black.” The rest of the piece substantiates that statement with data. Once the purpose is clarified, the visualization should serve to provide “cognitive amplification” of the information it represents (Card, Mackinlay, and Schneiderman ; Lindquist ; Schwabish ). In his seminal book Things That Make Us Smart (1994, 49), Donald Norman tells us that “a good representation captures the essential elements of the event, deliberately leaving out the rest.…”

“…Rosling chose the data he presented carefully from a sea of statistics about countries. Both Schwabish () and Tufte () illustrate how this nuance makes compelling differences in how data are viewed and conclusions drawn. Care should also be taken to ensure accuracy in the depiction of the data.…”

“…Presentation should also attend to the differing needs, interests, and visual literacy of the multiple audiences accessing the artifact. Thus, most experts recommend a multitier communication schema (Herdal, Pedersen, and Knudsen ; Li and Liu ; Schwabish ). In most cases, the tiers are presented as big picture, complementary information, and in‐depth detail on demand.…”

“…Interested readers can consult any number of seminal works and comprehensive overviews for more detailed “how‐to” advice, such as Lindquist (), Schwabish (), Few (), and Tufte (), among many others.…”

Heterogeneity in consumers’ income and pension expectations

“…Figures 1 and 2 show how the frequency distributions of the answers to the five questions developed over time. The way these figures are organized is based upon Schwabish (2014). Each bar shows the relative frequencies as well as the cumulative distribution of the variable in a given year, making it easy to compare the distributions over the years.…”