1	Economics Textbooks and PowerPoint Presentations Professor Aaron S. Yelowitz Department of Economics University of Kentucky aaron@uky.edu Click here for better version
2	Why PowerPoint Is Essential PowerPoint as a “public good.” Thousands of professors spend a great deal of time each year on course preparation, and many make lecture notes or PowerPoint slides available to their students. In principle, one comprehensive set of slides (and/or notes) could be used costlessly by many, many instructors. This involves a lot of work, however. After all, why would one instructor want to make slides on textbook topics s/he isn’t going to cover?
3	My Academic Qualifications Ph.D. in Economics from MIT in 1994. Assistant Professor of Economics, UCLA, 1994-2001. Associate Professor of Economics, University of Kentucky, 2001-present. Research Associate, NBER.
4	My Teaching Experience Undergraduate Intermediate microeconomics, Public finance, Labor Economics, Poverty and Welfare Programs Graduate Public finance, Health Economics
5	My PowerPoint Experience 7^th edition of Harvey Rosen’s Public Finance textbook, McGraw Hill. 1^st edition of Jonathan Gruber’s Public Finance and Public Policy textbook, Worth Publishing.
6	What Does a Publisher Want? Professors and/or committees adopting the textbook, and staying loyal to it. Non-substitutability with competitors. Prompt delivery of PowerPoint presentations. No errors in slides. Reasonable price.
7	What Does a Publisher Want? Non-substitutability A key concern is non-substitutability. Since the basic economic concepts remain the same from one textbook to another, one publisher’s slides may end up being used even if the textbook isn’t adopted. This is part of the “public goods” problem mentioned before – instructors or other publishers may attempt to “free-ride” off of the hard work of one publisher.
8	What Does a Publisher Want? Non-substitutability How to overcome the free-rider problem: PowerPoint slides that are very closely aligned with the textbook. This creates “brand loyalty.” Using applied examples from the textbook, which are only relevant for that particular textbook. Using a master slide with publisher’s name. Enforcing copyright laws (costly).
9	What Do Professors Want? Absolutely all topics in a book covered. Easy distinction between main text, technical footnotes, real-world applications, and quiz-style examples.
10	What Do Professors Want? Topic coverage A key problem in writing a textbook is that the skills (especially the mathematical skills) vary substantially across institution. Most textbooks adopt a “lowest common denominator” approach to the main text, and then have a technical appendix. With PowerPoint, it is much easier to keep the flow of the lesson going, and simply marking “technical” or “example” slides (as shown above). Instructors can cut, or skip, those slides if they so choose.
11	What Do Professors Want? Easy distinction When I taught undergraduate Labor Economics in the Spring 2004 semester, I used Borjas’ textbook. The PowerPoint slides for “Labor Demand” (Chapter 4) were relatively lengthy compared to other chapters, yet still only 42 slides. Only 4 slides were devoted to the minimum wage, and they were completely generic! They created no “brand-loyalty” to Borjas’ book. Many of the slides for a chapter skipped many important topics, or provided minimal coverage. As a consequence, the slides ended up being useless – as an instructor, I can easily cut down on topics, but it is much more time consuming to expand.
12	What Do Students Want? Complement with, not substitute for, the textbook. May be impressed with flashy graphics, but in reality, the “flash” rapidly wears off. Self-teaching, showing all the steps. Fun. Slides that will match their four color pen (e.g., red, blue, green, and black).
13	A Simple Economics Example Consider a classic Economics 101 topic: What are the labor market consequences of raising the minimum wage? How does a typical textbook show this case, what are the challenges, and how could PowerPoint help?
14	Typical Textbook Presentation A traditional textbook graphical analysis usually shows a “price floor” and accompanying surplus of labor. See for example, “The Economics of Work and Pay,” 6^th edition, page 169. A typical textbook presentation is on the next page.
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16	Typical Textbook Presentation ZZZZZZZZZ. Wake up! Textbooks often restrict the use of color (because of the cost), and usually combine several concepts into one figure (to save page space). Although this reduces quality, it also saves money, and is a legitimate tradeoff for the hard-copy of a book.
17	Ineffective PowerPoint Presentation We might be forgiving of such a presentation in a book for the cost reasons given above. How does a “typical” PowerPoint presentation present this concept? Not much differently! See, for example, Borjas’ PowerPoints, Chapter 4, slide 37.
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19	Ineffective PowerPoint Presentation The one slight innovation is the use of color for the labor demand curve. The slide still combines several ideas in one picture, without much explanation.
20	Ineffective PowerPoint Presentation Another problem, demonstrated in some (but not all) PowerPoints, is ineffective presentation of equations. For example, we can write the elasticity of substitution as: %∆K/L ¸ %∆w/r Yet, this is somewhat hard to read.
21	Ineffective PowerPoint Presentation A more effective presentation of the same material is: That is, use the equation editor!
22	Modern PowerPoint Presentation It is clear that many current PowerPoint authors are not “pushing the envelope” in any significant way. Let’s first consider how to present some institutional detail on the minimum wage more effectively.
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24	Modern PowerPoint Presentation Table 1 shows several pedagogical points: First, a typical table in a textbook might have a great deal more information. This extra information is useless in a presentation. Along with this, there is no compelling reason to simply “cut-and-paste” the table into the text. A publisher should get the most out of PowerPoint. Second, the balloons help walk the instructor and students through the key facts of the table.
25	Modern PowerPoint Presentation Now, let’s take the same supply and demand analysis, and make modest changes using more features of PowerPoint. See Figure 3.
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27	Modern PowerPoint Presentation Figure 3 introduces, in succession: The idea of who the “supply” and “demand” curves belong to in this example. The idea of a shortage of labor – the notion that the market price is too low. The notion of competitive equilibrium. And finally, the unemployment from the minimum wage.
28	Modern PowerPoint Presentation It tries to keep the concepts simple, by not cluttering the picture with too many facts at a given time. Although the picture doesn’t look cluttered in the “slide show” mode, if you view the “custom animation,” you will see that creating something simple is actually incredibly involved.
29	Modern PowerPoint Presentation It is also very time-consuming to make useful, professional pictures like Figure 3. To do it correctly, you need someone with: Knowledge of teaching economics Experience with PowerPoint Some artistic ability
30	How Much Will This Cost? Prices vary with the difficulty of the project, deadline pressure, number of revisions and length of the textbook. A useful “reality check” is an hourly rate of $160.⁰⁰ and anywhere between 10 to 15 hours per chapter. Thus, roughly $2,000 per chapter.
31	Contact Information Aaron Yelowitz Dept. of Economics University of Kentucky 335 Business & Economics Building Lexington, KY 40506-0034
32	Contact Information E-mail: aaron@uky.edu Phone: 859-257-7634 URL: http://gatton.uky.edu/faculty/yelowitz/ or EconomicsPowerPoint.com