ECON 5004 Communication in Economics
Communication in Economics
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ECON 5004 Communication in Economics
About me
• Originally from the United States
• My PhD is from the University of Oregon... Go Ducks!
• My research area is macroeconomics with a particular focus on how people’s expectations
of future events shapes current economic outcomes
• I have held visiting positions at the Reserve Bank of Australia and the Bank of Finland
Why communication in economics?
• Good communication matters!
“The big secret in economics is that good writing pays well and bad writing pays badly.
Honest. Rotten writing causes more papers and reports to fail than do rotten statistics or
rotten research. You have to be read to be listened to. Bad writing is not read, even by
professors or bosses paid to read it. Can you imagine actually reading the worst term
paper you’ve ever turned in? Your sainted mother herself wouldn’t.” (McCloskey, 2000)
Why communication in economics?
“What economists do, and what people educated in economics do even if they never see a
demand curve after their education, depends on writing, because writing is the cheapest way
to reach a big audience, especially in the age of the Internet, and because writing forces the
writer to think... (McCloskey, 2000)
Why communication in economics?
because writing forces the writer to think...
• Writing and presenting are not just about communicating your ideas
• They are vital to understanding your own ideas
• No better way to see if you understand something than to write about it
• AI can write for you but it can’t think for you
Course Objectives
• Improve students’ oral and written communication skills
• Help students improve their ability to develop and critique economic arguments
• Think like an economist
• Learn LATEX
Course Structure
• Lectures on writing and presenting in economics
- Live lectures given by me on writing and presenting specifically for economists
• Peer review workshops
- Small group workshops with peers and tutors working on writing and presentation. These
will take place on Zoom.
• Mid semester writing assessment
- In class written assessment in week 7
Course Structure
• Typical class structure for the three hour block of time
- 18:00 - 19:00: Peer review workshop (Zoom)
- 19:00 - 19:20: Break
- 19:20 - 20:15: Lecture
- 20:15 - 20:20: Break
- 20:20 - 21:00: Lecture
Course Principles
• Develop a professional attitude toward writing and speaking: critique and revision
- Everyone’s first draft is terrible
- Criticism isn’t a bad thing
- You can learn about your own writing through trying to evaluate other’s
Course Principles
• Focus on quality, not quantity
• Short assignments, lots of feedback and revision
• A key aspect of the course is peer review and feedback
• “Cumulative assessment” approach
• Will get feedback from
• Peers (and give feedback to peers)
• Tutors
• and me...
Course Principles
• Be willing to take risks and fail!
• Learning by doing
• Objective is to see engagement and improvement, from whatever your starting point. We are
all learning – we just enter the class at different points in our development as
communicators of economics (including me!)
• Most, if not all, assessment is based on skills and outputs that do not depend on being a
native English speaker, but will help to improve your communication in English
How do we accomplish the course principles?
Course Project
• We will complete a course project!
1. Select into a topic area
2. Develop a thesis
3. Research the thesis
4. Present the thesis
5. Write about the thesis
Course Project
• Major components of the course project
1. Thesis statement and overview DUE 8 Aug
2. The Elevator Pitch – two-minute or less scripted speech to convey a research project idea.
- Presented in class 16, 23, and 30 Aug
3. Graphs discussion DUE 5 Sep
4. Academic Essay – 1500-word essay on the research topic
- Draft for peer-review DUE 12 Sep
- Final draft DUE 8 Oct
5. Academic Presentation – 10-minute live presentation of research project
- Draft slides DUE 27 Sep
- Presented in class 18 and 25 of Oct and 1 Nov
Course Project
Academic Integrity
• The course has many of written components
• This always invites temptation to take shortcuts
• We will spend a lot of time discussing academic integrity and proper citation
• I will be aggressive in prosecuting any wrong doing
• This is a master’s course. If you aren’t prepared to do you own work, then why are you
here?
Course Project
• Peer review workshops
- The course is a three hour block
- The first hour (18:00 - 19:00) will generally be our peer review workshops
- The workshops are where you go to receive feedback and discuss your ideas
- Your peer review group is organized by the topic selected for the course project
- Everyone in your group is working on similar ideas giving you a natural group to seek
feedback and advice
Quizzes
• There will be weekly readings most weeks
- McCloskey, Deirdre. 2019. Economical Writing: Thirty-Five Rules for Clear and Persuasive
Prose. Edition 3e. University of Chicago Press.
- Second edition is also fine. Mostly the same content.
• Quizzes may ask simple comprehension questions to reward you for doing the readings
• There will also be reflection questions
• Some quizzes will also cover LATEX questions
• Final mark is based on best three quiz results (i.e. you get to drop some low quiz results)
In-class writing exercise
• Week 7 in-person assessment
• Supervised under exam-like conditions
• You will be asked to answer some questions on course content
• You will be asked to write about your chosen topic
All Assessments
Course Project Key Assessments and Due Dates
Task Description Marks Due Date
Thesis statement Thesis statement and overview 6 8-Aug
Elevator Pitch Two-minute or less scripted speech 14 16, 23, 30-Aug
Graph tutorial discussion Motivating graph 2 5-Sep
Academic Essay 1500-word essay 26 Draft 12-Sep, Final 8-Oct
Academic Presentation 10-minute live presentation 26 Draft 27-Sep, 18. 25-Oct, 1-Nov
In-class writing exercise 750-word essay + questions 20 Week 7 - 13 Sep
Quizzes Various 6 Various weeks
Course Total 100
Course Project - Topics
• Education and Knowledge
• Energy and Environment
• Poverty and Economic Development
• Monetary Policy
• Food and Agriculture
• Health
• Demographic Change
• Living Conditions, Community and Wellbeing
Course Project - Topics
• Go to Canvas > People
• Select into one of the topic groups
• The number of people in each topic is capped so do this early to get the topic you want
• The topic you choose determines your peer review group
Course Project - Topics
What do I do once I have chosen a topic?
• The main assessments are a 1,500 word essay and a 10-minute presentation of the
material in the essay
• This isn’t a long essay or very much time to present
• But this isn’t a thesis class... that is ECON 7030
• Our main goal is to get you to think like an economist and to write better
• We want you to try to write one these types of essays:
1. A persuasive essay/Opinion editorial
2. Or, a research proposal
Course Project - Topics
What is the difference between a persuasive essay and research proposal?... less than you may
think
• A persuasive essay has a view point that you want to convince the reader is true
• A research proposal has a view point that you want to convince the reader might be true
or false, but either answer is interesting
Course Project - Topics
• Examples of persuasive essays... The Conversation
- Perceptions of corruption are growing in Australia, and it’s costing the economy
- Poverty and Economic Development
- Relax, Australia does not have (and is not likely to have) a shortage of food
- Food and Agriculture
- A myth that won’t die: stopping migration did not kickstart the economy
- Demographic Change
Course Project - Topics
• Examples of research proposals... unfortunately not great online examples here... but here
is one of mine
- Economic policy when interest rates are zero: This project studies economic policy when
interest rates are zero. We exploit recent international experience with zero rates to
understand why new policies have had mixed success.
- Monetary policy
Course Project - Topics
There is a common structure to both types of essays
• A thesis statement
• Some data to motivate or support the thesis
• An economic framework to anchor the ideas (even if not explicit)
• Both make use of credible sources to support the thesis
• Short and to the point
Course Project - First Assessments
TWO TASKS TO COMPLETE FOR NEXT WEEK
1 Select into your topic group
2 Complete the “thesis statement and overview” assessment
Course Project - First Assessments
• Thesis statement workshop - August 8th
• We will break into our topic groups and discuss our thesis statements
• Peer review... discuss... refine
• Some of your thesis statements may not be great... accept the criticism and work to make
it better
• The more clear your thesis is, the easier the assessments in this course will be
Thesis Statement Q&A
• Can I have the same thesis as someone else?
- NO, you cannot have the exact same thesis. You can study very similar questions though.
• Can I change my thesis after submitting?
- YES. In fact, most people will likely change their thesis statement somewhat after receiving
feedback. But your thesis must be set by the Elevator Pitch assessment that starts in week
3. You cannot change after that assessment.
• Does the thesis need to be an economic question?
- YES. But economics covers just about everything. If you have an idea that you are
passionate about in your topic area, but you are worried its not economics, ask in the thesis
statement workshop or come chat with me.
• I know nothing about my topic area, how do I even start?
- In the Course Project document I give you some suggested reading. Look at those and the
sources they reference for inspiration. Or, ask me.
Looking ahead... Elevator pitches
• Work on your thesis statement now
• Week 3 you need to present it!
• We will do elevator pitch style presentations
- 2-minutes or less speech
- No props, no slides, just you and us on Zoom
- Your thesis plus why it is important/interesting/worth of our time in a quick pitch form
• Time is valuable... so don’t blow your chance
Thinking like an economist
Thinking like an economist
• Appealing to “economic theory” is meaningless
• There is no such thing as “economic theory” in the sense of a widely accepted and agreed
upon view of how the economy functions
• What economists do have are widely accepted ways of modelling common economic
decisions
• Some of which are indeed widely used to think about certain economic phenomena, but no
serious economists believes that these models are the sole source of truth
Thinking like an economist
• Thinking like an economist, arguing like an economist, reasoning like an economist means
thinking in terms of models
• What are models?... Simplifications of real world scenarios that provide an internally
consistent framework to understand/illustrate an argument