Exhibit 2A.3 Participants Meeting Proportion 0.

6
All Standards by Month of students
meeting 0.5
The time series graph takes the standards
same information that was in the
bar chart, but shows how it changes 0.4
depending on the month of the
school year during the experiment. 0.3
The points are connected to more
clearly illustrate the month-to- 0.2
month trend. In addition, by using
a different color or line pattern, we Control
0.1
can represent two groups (Control Parent Incentives
and Parent Incentives) on the same
0
graph, giving the opportunity to Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May
compare the two groups, just as (Base) Month
with the bar chart from before.

effectiveness of the incentive varies over the school year. As you read this book, one im-
portant data property to recognize is how variables change over time; time series graphs are
invaluable in helping us understand how a variable changes over time.

A scatter plot displays the
relationship between two variables
as plotted points of data.
Scatter Plots
You might ask yourself, without such monetary incentives is education worth it? In this
chapter we showed you how wages and years of education are related. Another way to
show the relationship is with a scatter plot. A scatter plot displays the relationship ­between
two variables as plotted points of data. Exhibit 2A.4 shows the relationship between years
of education and average weekly income across U.S. states in September of 2013. For
­example, the point 10.4 years of education and $800 in weekly earnings is from New
­Jersey. This means that the average years of education for New Jersey adults is 10.4 and the
average weekly earnings is $800.

Cause and Effect

We’ve written a fair amount about causation and correlation in this chapter. Economists are
much more interested in the former. Causation relates two variables in an active way—a
causes b if, because of a, b has occurred.

Exhibit 2A.4 Relationship Weekly $850

Between Education and earnings
800 New Jersey
Earnings
Each point in Exhibit 2A.4 is the 750
average years of education and 700
the median weekly earnings for
one state in the United States. 650
The exhibit is constructed ­using
600
Current Population Survey (CPS)
data from September 2013. The 550
exhibit highlights the positive
relationship between years of 500
education and weekly earnings.
450
9.4 9.6 9.8 10.0 10.2 10.4 10.6 10.8
Years of education

Appendix | Constructing and Interpreting Graphs 69

M02_ACEM0635_01_GE_CH02.indd 69 17/03/15 12:45 PM