You have to present economic data to non-economists. What are some ways to make it engaging?

O ponto essencial é trabalhar o Storylelling e a forma como os dados serão apresentados. Pessoas associam economia com algo chato e muitas vezes apenas como um mal necessário, então transformar informações econômicas em algo mais palatável através de da forma como a história é contada se torna essencial para prender a atenção do público.

As a rule of thumb, I always have different set of slides for economists and non-economists when presenting economic data. For the latter, I will usually omit the portion about empirical strategy that goes into the details of the mathematical derivation/econometric model of the data. Instead, I found using graphical representation and also numerical example appeal more to non economics audience. For example, if I have a paper on diff-in-diff, a canonical illustration to explain the concept is via graph showing two parallel lines and explaining the concept behind it.

Ferramentas gráficas presentes no Excel, assim com em outros softwares e linguagens de programação como Power BI, Tableau, R e Python ajudam à contar a história de maneira muito mais interativa que o simples uso de recortes de matéria de jornal e recursos visuais estáticos.

Avoid jargons and use words and vocabulary that your audience would understand without having to explain during the presentation. For example, the term diminishing marginal utility might come across as something rather intuitive for economists, but maybe not so for non-economists — always consider how we can frame such concept into much simpler terms for the wider audience to understand. The best way is of course to seek advise from non-economists about your content. If they still have questions regarding the terms, that means you’ve to adjust and continue to nuance the content.

A best way I found to learn a new concept is always using humour, or examples that are outlandish but relevant. For instance, prisoner‘s dilemma. It is an odd example to illustrate game theory but almost every non-economists have heard of this. This begs the question, what kind of humour or interesting examples should you use for such illustration? As a simple rule of thumb, I always stick to these three traits when thinking about humour - light, relatable, impactful. Try it out the next time round and you will find yourself delivering more impactful content to non-economists (and economists) alike!

I like to think back on the things that first got me interested in the field before I knew anything technical. Usually, these things had a clear and interesting relationship to human psychology and behavior, which most people have a base interest in. When presenting dense economic topics to an unfamiliar audience, I try to replicate that same connection. Presenting the information in a way that is immediately recognizable and relatable on a human level.