Category: Supply & Demand

Superstore — Discounting the Lottery

Mateo and Cheyenne discuss what they would do if they won the lottery. The two list a variety of different items they would spend their money on after receiving their income boost. Unfortunately, Sandra tells them about the difference between an annuity and a lump sum payment.

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Superstore — Winning the Lottery

What would you do if you won the lottery? This clip fits nicely with two different sections of an economics course. The first is how people respond to income increases in terms of purchasing normal goods or luxury goods. For labor economics, this discussion is a good segue to discussion how increases in income decrease the time people devote to work assuming leisure is a normal good.

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Jurassic Park — Coupon Day at the Park

This clip has both the idea of an inelastic good and the idea of price discrimination. I suggest using it when teaching elasticity and then also using it when you teach price discrimination and talk about how they connect!

Here’s the page from the book.

Thanks to James Tierney for the clip and description!

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The Simpsons — Valentine’s Day

Homer forgets it’s Valentine’s Day so he has to rush off to the Kwik-E-Mart to pick up a last-minute gift. Seeing that Home is desperate, Apu takes the chance to raise the price of a box of chocolates to $100. Despite Homer’s annoyance, he pays the higher price because he knows he’ll be in trouble if he comes back empty-handed. After threatening never to shop there again, Apu offers him a discount on other products to keep him from shopping next door.

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CBS Early Show — Same Price, Smaller Product

One way that companies can reduce supply without customers realizing it is by changing the size of the packaging. This actually makes the per unit price higher, which matches with the theory of decreasing supply. This decrease in supply could come from changes in input prices or perhaps shifts in agricultural markets, like freezes in Florida and oranges.

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TIME — Nutella Riots After Price Drop

 

A few supermarkets in France decided to cut the price of Nutella (an extremely popular item throughout Europe) by 70% and customers responded in droves to scoop up the heavily discounted staple. Police were called to various markets as customers fought to get the remaining jars. Not only is this a great example for demand shifts, but it’s an even better topic of elasticity!

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Always Sunny — Supply Shifts for Fish

While trying to spy on a local fish accident, Dee has an accident that causes the business to shut down for a bit. This reduction in supply is shown later when Dennis, Mac, and Charlie go to a restaurant for lunch and intend to order fish. Because of the reduction in supply, the market price for snapper has gone up to $44, but the guys buy the fish anyway since they are charging it to Frank’s card.

Thanks to Maggie Sciabica for the reference!

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Christmas with the Kranks — Hickory Honey Ham

This scene is from the movie Christmas with the Kranks involves a specific type of ham that has been sold out and Mrs. Krank needs one because it’s Christmas Eve and her daughter flew in for Christmas.  She pays above the sticker price of the ham because it was the last one available in the store. Because there is only one ham left and it doesn’t matter how much the ham costs, Mrs. Krank will buy it.  This means that Mrs. Krank’s elasticity for hickory honey ham is very inelastic.

Thanks to Salvatore Pollastro for the summary and the clip!

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