The local shop owner is having a big summer blowout sale and prices are low! The problem is that in this magical world, summer items aren’t exactly in high demand.
Thanks to Christine Cai for the clip!
The Simpsons — Homer Wants a Ticket
Homer waits in line 8 days to grab a coveted ticket to a coveted event. His excitement is dismayed when a scalper, who happened to be first in line, decides to purchase all of the tickets for the event. Scalpers can serve as an efficient distributor of tickets, but many people don’t believe it’s fair.
If you love economics and The Simpsons, Josh Hall edited a book that may interest you.
The Wire: Stringer Bell Learns Economics
While attending community college, Stringer Bell enrolls in an economics course and tries to apply the concepts of elasticity to his copying business.
Jingle All The Way: Elasticity of TurboMan
Howard (Arnold Schwarzenegger) tries to get a coveted TurboMan action figure doll the day before Christmas. It’s only the hottest selling toy of the season, so everyone is in a rush to grab this item. Because prices aren’t (initially) adjusting in their usual way, a shortage occurs across the entire city.
A limited shipment of Turbo Man action figures does arrive at one store, which decides to allocate the doll through a lottery system. Whenever there are shortages in markets, there may be a misallocation of consumption, particularly when items are distributed randomly rather than to the consumers with the highest willingness to pay. Even the though the price of the doll increases by 100%, there doesn’t appear to be any change in the quantity that people want to purchase. This would imply that the demand for TurboMan action figures is very inelastic.
The Simpsons: Bart Gets an Elephant
In this clip, Homer decides to monetize Bart’s elephant in order to try and recoup some of the costs of owning the elephant. When he quickly realizes he hasn’t set a high enough price, Homer tries to go back and increase the price, but he may have gone a bit too far.
Late Show: Uber CEO Discusses Surge Pricing
This is just a small clip of Stephen Colbert’s interview with Uber CEO, Travis Kalanick. This portion discusses surge pricing and how drivers respond to increases in demand. This clip also opens the door for discussions on efficiency vs equity.
Dangerous Missions: Timber!
Documentary about the many dangers lumberjacks face while doing their work. The impact of the technological advances of chainsaws over the last century in the lumber industry is also highlighted. Great discussion for capital/labor decisions plus scale/substitution effects when capital prices change.