I don’t know why, but academic economists just love to use cartoons in their presentations. I would guess that one out of three academic seminars includes a cartoon, and if it is a plenary talk, a cartoon is virtually guaranteed.
I don’t have anything specifically against cartoons, but to the best of my recollection, I have never in my life included one in my presentation, or linked to one from this blog — until today.
My former student Hays Golden sent me the following cartoon from xkcd.com, and it is so appropriate given the classes I have taught this term, that I can’t control my economist urges. I have no choice but to post it here on the blog:
From xkcd.com
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Correlation does not imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing ‘look over there.’
And for completeness, all xkcd comics have a secondary punchline viewable by hovering your mouse pointer over the image. Here is what it says,
“Correlation doesn’t imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing ‘look over there’.”
Do not forget to read the rest of the comic (that I do not see here noted). If you don’t, you miss out on most of the joke.
As an XKCD addict, I strongly recommend browsing through the rest of his cartoons – insightful, funny, ironic.
XKCD is awesome. great cartoon.
In fact, the cartoon is so awesome, that Greg Mankiw decided to spruce up his blog with a link to that one too. Causation?
XKCD has for some time been my favorite cartoon, and it’s strips like that one that are the reason.
i don’t get it- must be correlation