The seventh episode of our podcast series discusses the supply side of the market – the law of supply, slope of the curve and the difference between a change in supply and a change in quantity supplied.
This series of slides aids students in reviewing the determinants of supply and demand, provides an exercise for them to choose which of the curves shift and why, and allows them to determine which curve will shift given a market event.
This interactive and collaborative activity asks students to estimate the demand of a product (pizza) based on different prices. Instructors can upload the materials to their own Google drives and run the experiment repeatedly to generate new data and demonstrate trends. This resource was developed by Birjees Ashraf, Sophie Haci, Renee Edwards, and Charles Hackner.
What is economics and why should you spend your time learning it? After all, there are other disciplines you could be studying, and other ways you could be spending your time. As the Bring it Home feature just mentioned, making choices is at the heart of what economists study, and your decision to take this course is as much an economic decision as anything else.
Economics is probably not what you think it is. It is not primarily about money or finance. It is not primarily about business. It is not mathematics. What is it then? It is both a subject area and a way of viewing the world.
What if there were no prices? How would you use available resources? In this video, Professor Howard Baetjer Jr. of Towson University leads you through a thought experiment to illustrate why market prices are essential to human well-being. Suppose you were the commissar of railroads in the old Soviet Union. Markets and prices have been banished. You want a railroad from City A to City B, but between the cities is a mountain range. You can build the railroad around the mountains and use more steel or through the mountain and use more engineering. Which should you choose?