Slides from my recent talk at the Visweek conference in Seattle, WA.

1. Graphics, Infographics, and
Data Visualization:
An Economist’s Call for
Better Visuals
Jonathan A. Schwabish
Congressional Budget Office
jschwabi@yahoo.com
@jschwabish
October 2012
The views expressed in this presentation are those of the author and should
not be interpreted as those of the Congressional Budget Office.

2. Graphics produced by
economists, policy and budget
analysts, government agencies…
can be better

3. Social Security Administration

4. Klerman and Danielson, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 2011

5. Social Security Administration

6. Government Accountability Office

7. Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City

8. Bailey, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2012

9. Chinn 2011, LaFollette School WP No. 2012-006

10. Sala, Soderstrom, and Trigara, NBER WP No. 18434, 2012

11. Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta

12. Bureau of Economic Analysis

13. U.S. Census Bureau

14. Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis

15. U.S. Department of the Treasury

16. Hanson, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 2012

17. U.S. Department of Agriculture

18. Gokhale, Social Security: A Fresh Look at Policy Alternatives, 2010

19. Social Security Advisory Board

20. Modrek and Cullen, 14th Annual Joint Conference of the
Retirement Research Consortium

21. Sum = 98% Sum = 100%
Social Security Administration

22. Holden and Fontes, Journal of Women, Politics, & Policy, 2009

23. Focus

24. Expertise

25. Knowledge

26. CBO’s Infographic Demographic
• Member of Congress
Wants to get specific information on a topic,
a broad overview, quick facts, or bullet points.
• Congressional Staffer
Wants to get data quickly. Might be briefing
Member on topics outside usual areas of
responsibility.

27. CBO’s Infographics:
Bring the most important
information to the top

28. Understanding the Fiscal Cliff
75 pages 10 pages

32. The purpose of visualization
is insight, not pictures
-Card, Mackinlay and Shneiderman (1999)

33. Data Government
Visualization Agencies