Syllabus

Dates

  •   Oct 5, 2026 – Jan 25, 2026
  •   Mondays
  •   10:00–12:00
  •   TC.5.05

Highlights

  •   30 students
  •   Engage in policy discussion
  •    Improve your R coding skills
  •   Create an own data visualization

Contact

Please contact both lecturers via e-mail. Note that we use the WU Canvas platform canvas.wu.ac.at for all assignments in this course.

Course design

The lecturers introduce into various fields of monetary policy and provide examples of data visualizations that serve as starting point for discussions. As the graphic illustration of statistical data gains in importance in both the academic and the public discourse, students will learn best practices and gain insights into the visualization of data. A part of each session is dedicated to the work with data where the lecturers provide R-code to produce figures in class.

Students are expected to recreate three charts at home during the semester and create a comprehensive data visualization with exclusive data from the Austrian National Bank (OeNB). Experts from OeNB will introduce the data in class and provide valuable insights into the empirical analysis of monetary policy. Students will present their chart at the end of the semester and draft a report with a detailed description of the data, the code and the final visualization in RMarkdown. Moreover, the best charts are awarded in a joint ceremony with the Austrian National Bank.

The sessions are designed to encourage students to actively participate in the debates, raise questions, and gain experience in visualizing data for academic publications or the general debate.

Learning outcomes

After completing this course, students will:

  • know key figures in various fields of monetary policy
  • be aware of potentials and limitations of available data in specific policy areas
  • show improved programming skills in R and the ability to create an RMarkdown report
  • have basic knowledge of important principles of data visualization
  • be able to create simple charts to enrich their academic articles

Grading

 Assignments: 30% (0-10 points for each visualization)

Chart presentation: 30% (0-20 points for the quality of the presentation, 0-10 for the preliminary chart)

Written report: 40% (0-40 points for the report and the final chart)

  100-90: Excellent     89-80: Good     79-65: Satisfactory     64-50: Sufficient

All single tasks have to be passed (50% threshold each).