In: Maps US Economy
23 Mar 2012James Hamilton takes a crack at explaining why gasoline prices vary so much across the country. I think he’s right that taxes, regulations, and transportation explain most of it, but I suspect that refinery shenanigans also play a role. Brad Plumer over at WashPost has additional insights.
(the original version of this map over at Gasbuddy is fun to zoom around in)
One of my favorite economic dashboards. It highlights major macro indicators, what direction they are trending, what the typical ranges are, and lets you drill down to explanations of why you should care about these numbers.
There’s are a lot of nonsense charts and projections in Paul Ryan’s new House Republican budget, but rather than get into political arguments, I’ll just post the ones I thought were actually insightful:
In: Science US Economy
6 Mar 2012A recent study compared the cost of procedures across different countries. It’s interesting to me that some people think our “free market” medical system is the best, without realizing that health care services here in no way resemble a market. The related article runs through a number of ways our system is dysfunctional.
A wonderful post over at The Big Picture that takes both liberals and conservatives to the wood shed over their abuse of economic indicators and charts that show correlation but not causation.
Note: The comments over there are worth a read as well.
Updated for January: one of my favorite economic dashboards. It highlights major macro indicators, what direction they are trending, what the typical ranges are, and lets you drill down to explanations of why you should care. In other words, it’s a very sleek example of how to graph snapshot data while still providing valuable context.
A treemap of the jobs that the 1% are doing – showing a lot of variety. I wish there was more detail about the dataset source. The related article provides some anecdotal examples.
In: Culture Employment Interactive Maps Source: NYT US Economy
17 Jan 2012Enter your household income and see where you rank in 344 areas around the country:
There’s some interesting behind the scenes information on the news paper version here:
In: Graphic Design (general) Innovative Source: WSJ US Economy
13 Jan 2012Here’s an example of how more isn’t always better. Compare the interactive presentation of retail sales data below to the static version – both from the Wall Street Journal. In my opinion the static version presents the information in a much clearer and usable format. The only thing it’s missing is a chart for “total retail sales”. Regarding the interactive version, I’ve never liked stacked bar charts over time unless they illustrate very clear trends – with this many similar segments I think they are pretty silly (though the ability to drill down does alleviate this a smidgeon). (related article)
In: Finance History US Economy
19 Dec 2011In: Employment US Economy
29 Nov 2011In: Employment Finance Housing Interactive Stock Market US Economy
22 Nov 2011Updated for November: one of my favorite economic dashboards. It highlights major macro indicators, what direction they are trending, and what the typical ranges are. It also lets you drill down to explanations of why you should care, and historical values.
An addictive collection of beautiful charts, graphs, maps, and interactive data visualization toys -- on topics from around the world.