Category: Labor Economics

Shawshank Redemption — Crowding Out

In this scene, cheap inmate labor provided by Shawshank crowds out private investment. The Warden ends up getting bribed to make sure he does not bid on a contract that the private investor needs to have. This can be shown to students to talk about how programs that are meant to help the economy can crowd out private investment. It can also lead into a discussion on corruption and greed.

Thanks James Tierney for the clip and description!

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Battle of the Sexes — The Press Release

Billie Jean King left the United States Lawn Tennis Association because of the promoter’s  refusal to compensate the female players the same as the male players. Promoter Jack Kramer (played by Bill Pullman) argues that the men are paid more because they are stronger and faster. His colleague argues it from a reservation wage standpoint, that men needed to be paid more to attract them to the circuit. King (played by Emma Stone) argued that women should be paid equally based on marginal revenue product theory since the women sell the same number of tickets as men.

This same issue has been recently discussed regarding the US men’s and women’s national soccer teams.

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NY Times — The 1998 NFL Draft: A Look Back at the Epic Ryan Leaf Bust

 

One of the struggles with hiring workers is evaluating talent, specifically for college athletes considering the NFL. In 1998, Ryan Leaf appeared to be the top college athlete even with some questionable character flaws. The Colts, instead, chose to select Peyton Manning with their first pick of the draft despite some criticism. Manning went on to be one of the winningest QBs in NFL history while Ryan Leaf is considered one of the biggest NFL busts in the history of the league. This clip from the New York Time’s Retro Reporting division revisits that controversial decision.

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The Daily Show — Wage Against the Machine

This video does a nice job of describing many of the economic arguments for and against raising the minimum wage in a comical way. The clip is a few years old, but it still does a nice job of discussing many of the common arguments. Note: the clip does include a supply and demand graph, but it labels supply and demand incorrectly! This is a good opportunity to discuss economic misconceptions, as well as the labor supply and labor demand curves.

Thanks to Rebecca Chambers for the clip and description!

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Always Sunny — Mac and Charlie Get a Job

 

After Dee has a heart attack and finds out she doesn’t have health insurance, Mac and Charlie go on a quest to get a job that includes healthcare benefits. They decide to apply to a job together, but since they only care about the healthcare part of the job, they end up accepting a minimum wage job.

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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!

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Brooklyn 99 — Name a Rich Juggler

Gina is back after maternity leave, but is missing her child. Terry decides to check in on Gina and ask how she’s handling her new role juggling a new child while still returning to work. Gina points out that juggling isn’t that hard or else you would see a lot of rich performers. Typically people who go through more training and have more human capital are paid better, but that may not be the case for jugglers.

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The Daily Show — Ugly People Discrimination

Daily Show correspondent, Jason Jones, interviews Dan Hamermesh about looks-based discrimination. While people traditionally associate discrimination with race and gender, discrimination from an economic perspective is showing priority to one group of people over another. While the correspondent takes a comedic approach, the research by Hamermesh has been covered by a variety of outlets including Wall Street Journal, Freakonomics, New York Times, and US News.

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