Using PowerPoint to Think and Write

Health Economics

Allen C. GoodmaniHEA World Congress

Milano – July 2015

Student Experience

Students often come to both undergraduate and graduate economics courses with little or no experience in writing economics … Often little experience in any sort of scholarly writing – and they detest outlining anything.

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All of these can be done as PP presentations

• It makes students synopsize what they want to do.• It makes students write it down.• It makes it easy for them to organize … and re-organize …

and re-organize again.• Makes it easy for students to provide intermediate output

– in the consulting vernacular, “deliverables.”

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Tool = PowerPoint

• For outlines, data organization, and at the end of the process, presentation, provides a helpful way for students to

1. start the process, 2. provide early output for instructional review,3. organize data, diagrams, maps, and/or tables,4. “fill in the blanks” as they write,5. and then … present the results

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Simple Example

• Determinants of National Health Expenditures• Easy to do with OECD Health Data

• As simple as Expenditures/person = a + b GDP/person, for a single country

• Can be more complicated (more countries, more variables)

• Can have more complicated econometrics (cointegration analysis).

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1. What should I do? – 5 slides

1. Title (it’s amazing how many are entitled “presentation”).2. Null and alternative hypotheses3. Database4. Variables to use5. One slide list of references (maybe 5)

a. Wikipedia is not a scholarly referenceb. FGS/7 is not a scholarly reference.

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2. Early output - Reading

• Structure the reading• Think of this like a chemistry

or a physics experiment • Aim• Equipment• Procedure• Results• Interpretation

• Here• Economics analogy

• Aim• Approach• Database• Findings• Meaning• What did you like?• What didn’t you like?

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Spreadsheet FormatTitle Journal Aim Approach Database Findings Meaning Like? Dislike?

Many journals accept (PREFER) this as a literature review

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3. Data, Diagrams, Maps, or Tables

Health Expenditures and GDP Per Capita – 1960 - 2008

GDP Expenditures

Mean Median Mean Median

Canada 15778 14489 1516 1259

Italy 13897 12518 2013 1885

UK 14242 11590 1047 689

US 18862 16539 2647 18117/6/2015 9

Summary Regression – UK – Log-Log

SUMMARY OUTPUT - UK

Regression StatisticsMultiple R 0.999099R Square 0.998199Adjusted R Square0.99816Standard Error 0.02122Observations 49

ANOVAdf SS MS F

Regression 1 11.72687 11.72687 26042.66Residual 47 0.021164 0.00045Total 48 11.74803

CoefficientsStandard Error t Stat P-valueIntercept -2.22412 0.030938 -71.8896 1.01E-49GDP 1.246471 0.007724 161.3774 3.73E-667/6/2015 10

Summary Regression – US – Log-LogSUMMARY OUTPUT - US

Regression StatisticsMultiple R 0.999487R Square 0.998975Adjusted R Square0.998953Standard Error 0.017721Observations 49

ANOVAdf SS MS F

Regression 1 14.38352 14.38352 45803.26Residual 47 0.014759 0.000314Total 48 14.39828

CoefficientsStandard Error t Stat P-valueIntercept -2.66021 0.027116 -98.1034 5.01E-56GDP 1.399581 0.00654 214.017 6.55E-727/6/2015 11

4. Write– UK – Log-LogSUMMARY OUTPUT - UK

Regression StatisticsMultiple R 0.999099R Square 0.998199Adjusted R Square0.99816Standard Error 0.02122Observations 49

ANOVAdf SS MS F

Regression 1 11.72687 11.72687 26042.66Residual 47 0.021164 0.00045Total 48 11.74803

CoefficientsStandard Error t Stat P-valueIntercept -2.22412 0.030938 -71.8896 1.01E-49GDP 1.246471 0.007724 161.3774 3.73E-66

R-squared is over 0.99 – pretty good

Elasticity is 1.25

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Write – US – Log-LogSUMMARY OUTPUT - US

Regression StatisticsMultiple R 0.999487R Square 0.998975Adjusted R Square0.998953Standard Error 0.017721Observations 49

ANOVAdf SS MS F

Regression 1 14.38352 14.38352 45803.26Residual 47 0.014759 0.000314Total 48 14.39828

CoefficientsStandard Error t Stat P-valueIntercept -2.66021 0.027116 -98.1034 5.01E-56GDP 1.399581 0.00654 214.017 6.55E-72

R-squared is over 0.99 – pretty good

Elasticity is 1.40

US elasticity > UK elasticity

Graph?

Put in same table?

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5. Finish the paper

• Do I need more analyses? – Put them in the right place.• Do I have to read something else – Put that in the right

place.• Am I much more organized? We hope so.• If you are writing in MS Word, you can just cut and paste

the tables, graphs, references.

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Arrière Pensées

• This is obviously an undergraduate example. It can also work at the graduate level, often topic by topic or chapter by chapter.

• Graduate students (and advisers) are often frustrated by lack of progress or talking past each other.

• Often when a student will come in with an idea, I’ll say, “write me a 10 slide PowerPoint.”

• They have to organize• They have to figure out what is important• They have to figure out how to present the key ideas rather than simply

writing them down.

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Autres Arrière Pensées

• On occasion, I’ve dispensed with the paper entirely, and asked for a complete set of PP slides.

• This depends on the motives for the research. It won’t work if you view it as important to concentrate on grammar.

• Insist that students avoid MASSIVE “cut and pastes”. This is equivalent to stringing along paragraph-long quotes in a paper … and just as bad.

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So …

• Rather than being the last thing that students do, PowerPoint can help from the start.

• Outline• Organize• Rearrange• Summarize• … and finally• Present

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