2.1 Exhibit 2.

1 Flying from
New York to Tokyo
Requires More Than a
Flat Map
2.2
This flat map is a model of
part of the earth’s surface. It
treats the world as ­perfectly
2.3 flat, which leads the map
maker to exaggerate
­distances in the northern Canada
latitudes. It is useful for cer-
tain purposes—for instance,
learning geography. But United
you wouldn’t want to use North Pacific States
it to find the best air route Ocean
Japan
across the Pacific Ocean.
For example, the shortest Mexico
flight path from New York
to Tokyo is not a straight
line through San Francisco.
Instead, the shortest path
goes through Northern
Alaska! The flat-earth model
is well suited for some tasks
(geography lessons) and ill-
suited for others (interconti-
nental flight navigation).

Exhibit 2.2 New York City

Subway Map
This is a model of the sub-
way system in New York
City. It is highly simplified—
for example, it treats New
York City as a perfectly flat
surface and it also distorts
the shape of the city—but
it is nevertheless very useful
for commuters and tourists.

Data are facts, measurements, or
statistics that describe the world.
future. It is more important for a model to be simple and useful than it is for a model to be
precisely accurate.
All scientific models make predictions that can be checked with data—facts, measure-
ments, or statistics that describe the world. Recall from Chapter 1 that economists often de-
scribe themselves as empiricists, or say that we practice empiricism, because we use data

54 Chapter 2 | Economic Methods and Economic Questions

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