April 2011: Welcome to the Data Den. We're hoping to increase transparency, demonstrate ways of displaying data, encourage action based on the data set, and improve access to information for our members and decision-makers.

This month as we examine options for future conference locations, we hoped to inform the decision-making process by looking at how the location impacted attendance. For instance, we know that holding the conference in a particular state increases regional attendance. The question that we were less sure about was whether the increase in attendance from a particular state one year was likely to hold to subsequent years when the conference moved locations. Because we were in lovely San Antonio in 2010, with strong attendance from our Texas colleagues, should we anticipate greater attendance from Texas delegates in 2011 when we move on to Anaheim in California?

Examination of the following heatmap that looks at AEA Conference attendees by state suggests that increases in any given year because of location are not maintained in subsequent years. There is little after-effect in terms of attendance from year to year.

Frequently Asked Questions

What am I looking at? This is a heatmap of the US-based AEA conference attendees by state for 2002-2010. The total attendees are represented in each column, the text includes the percent of the total attendees in a year from the particular state, the color density fluctuates based on the magnitude of the percentage of attendees from a particular state with the highest percentages in a particular year receiving the darkest shading.
se note that AEA has a digital subscription to Tableau that allows for sharing of visualizations publicly without sharing the underlying data.

How was the heatmap made? The interactive heatmap was created using Tableau software. Information about Tableau may be found at https://www.tableausoftware.com/. Please note that AEA has a digital subscription to Tableau that allows for sharing of visualizations publicly without sharing the underlying data.