ECF5560
Winter term, 2023
Session 2: Excel skillz
Cost benefit analysis & economic decision making
Dr. Emilia Tjernstrom
1. Data
2. Charts
3. Formulas
1. Data
- Document your data sources!
- Save raw data
- Link data, don't copy!
- Do everything with formulas
How to not hate your past self
2. Charts
The time cost of college
Source: Babcock, P. and Marks, M., 2011. The falling time cost of college: Evidence from half a century of time use data. Review of Economics and Statistics, 93(2), pp.468-478.
The time cost of college
The time cost of college
- Open the sheet called StudyTime
- Select the data
- Choose a chart type (scatter/line)
- Clean up the chart
- NO smoothed lines
- NO legend (esp. for a single data series)
The time cost of college
The time cost of college
- Open the sheet called StudyTime
- Select the data
- Choose a chart type (scatter/line)
- Clean up the chart
- Switch the axes!
=SERIES(legend text, x axis data, y axis data, series number)
Chart checklist
Check for...
-
a descriptive title?
-
well-labelled axes?
-
reasonable axis range?
-
is the legend text correct?
-
is the legend text needed?
ECF5560-CostBenefitAnalysis-2
By Emilia Tjernström
