The LA Clippers explain the difference between variable and dynamic ticket pricing, which are often confused by fans. Variable pricing refers to changes in ticket prices based on factors like opponent, day of the week, or time of the game. Dynamic ticket pricing takes things a step further and actually bases the ticket price off demand and supply for a particular game.
Always Sunny — Surrogacy Savings
Dee offers her womb to become a surrogate for a couple. In order to try and get a higher payoff, she offers to have more children at a discount for the couple. She notes that savings really kicks in if the couple were to have multiple children at one time. She even offers to be an octo-mom. This could also serve as a fun example of second degree price discrimination.
Rick & Morty — What’s the Point of Automation?
Rick’s quote in this episode is as followed, “The point of automation is to reduce cost and labor!” He says this because his robot’s dialogue disappointed him. This directly relates to economics, labor economics in particular, as when a firm’s supply of labor becomes too inelastic they will substitute capital for labor in order to reduce costs and increase profits. The firm, or Rick, is substituting capital for labor as we saw when examining firms’ reactions to labor markets.
Thanks to Justin Cooper for the clip and description!
Adam Ruins Everything — Eyeglass Monopoly
Adam Ruins Everything is a half-hour informational comedy were host, Adam Conover, debunks popular myths. Each episode is divided into 3 segments with some common theme. In the Spring of 2018, James Tierney and I sat down to go through all three seasons of Adam Ruins Everything to pick out examples in each episode that could be used in an economics course. If you’re curious about the paper, you can read about it here.
Eyeglasses in the United States can cost hundreds of dollars and that’s probably because 80% of glasses are manufactured by one firm under different brand names. Because they produce both luxury and basic brands, they are able to raise prices well beyond a more competitive price. Luxottica even owns many of the sunglasses stores, which gives them buying power over inputs.
Newsies — Unionism & Profit-Maximization
When Mr. Pulitzer decides to raise prices in the distribution channel by forcing the newsies (the newspaper boys) to pay higher prices for a pack of 100 papers, the newsies decide to go on strike. Without raising the price to the final consumer, the price increase essentially just lowers the profits the newsies can collect. They decide to go on strike and create a newsies union to have more monopoly power in the process.
Ron White — Cost of Sunglasses
Ron isn’t sure how a pair of sunglasses can cost more than a color television. On a recent trip to the Sunglass Hut to pick up a pair of new sunglasses, he encounters a salesperson who tries to convince him that the elimination of UV rays makes the glasses worth their price tag. Ron, not so politely, disagrees.
Going Places (1948)
From YouTube:
Cold War cartoon defending the profit motive against anti-capitalist critics. The second of seven smart-looking animated shorts in the “fun and facts about American business” series. Its subject is “the profit motive,” and it stars “Freddie Fudsie,” a lazy soap maker who just wants to go fishing. He invents bar soap, makes some money, and is about to retire in peace and quiet when a sexy lady (the Profit Motive) walks by and Freddie — who suddenly needs more money to win her affection — never sees a fishing hole again. But that’s okay, because “the profit motive has been the driving force behind the growth of American industry” and “will make a better life for the children of tomorrow.”
The Simpsons — Free Rider
This clip presents a curious problem, class elections take place and one candidate is wildly more popular; however, the election doesn’t turn out the way one would expect. Ask your students what exactly is happening in this clip; and, if they’ve ever experienced it. This clip is good for teaching Free Riding as it pertains to voting and irrational voting.
Luccasen, R. Andrew, and M. Kathleen Thomas. “Simpsonomics: Teaching Economics Using Episodes of The Simpsons.” The Journal of Economic Education 41.2 (2010): 136-49. Print.
Find more at Adrian Fohr’s Critical Common’s page.
Simpsons — Mr. Plow
Homer finds great success in operating a snow plow business, but his success is short-lived. Because of the ease of entry into the market, competition quickly eliminates his profits and he finds that competition isn’t as friendly as expected.
Johnny Cash — One Piece at a Time
Johnny Cash works out how he was able to build an entire car during his time at the assembly plant because he would steal the parts one piece at a time. He had a bit of trouble when it was time to register the car with the state because it came from so many different years.
Thanks for the clip Jim Bang!