Economic Policy Visualization
PI 5620 • Summer term 2023
Vienna University of Economics and Business
Lecturer
- Dr. Matthias Schnetzer
- https://mschnetzer.github.io
- mschnetz@wu.ac.at
- matschnetzer
Course details
- Mar 6, 2023 – Jun 26, 2023
- Mondays
- 10:00–12:00
- TC.4.15
Contact
Please contact me via e-mail and I will usually respond within a few days. Note that we use the learning platform learn.wu.ac.at for all assignments in this course.
Summary
“A picture is worth a thousand words”. This course approaches contemporary issues of economic policy by analyzing innovative or iconic data visualizations. Based on selected illustrations, we discuss the underlying data, the theoretical background and policy implications in various fields of empirical economics. In a second step, we will assemble plots in class and study the basics of data visualization. Students are required to recreate figures at home to improve their skills in coding. The main task is that students will design a comprehensive data visualization with the ggplot-Package in R and draft a report around that figure in RMarkdown (or Quarto). Student will need to bring their laptop to class and prior knowledge of data handling in R is beneficial.
To sum up, students will gain:
- an overview of contemporary debates in economic policy based on recent empirical research
- a basic understanding of principles of data visualization and the use of figures in economic policy debates
- knowledge how to enrich academic publications with informative graphs