Teaching Economics with Media
The guitar player is too busy to do his taxes, but TurboTax is happy to step in. The opportunity cost of stopping to complete the task is high for the guitar player but low for the accountant. The two can benefit from trade by having the musician continue to produce music and the accountant complete the taxes.
Thanks to Luke Starkey for the clip and summary!
Abed is running the fryer in the cafeteria and is in charge of the most popular item on the menu: chicken fingers. The school’s Spanish teacher wants those tenders and trades Abed for a box of tenders. The exchange? A 10% bump in his study group’s grades. Exchanges can be achieved through a barter system when someone has something that the other one values. This double coincidence of wants is required for a successful exchange.
Each year, children collect their trick-or-treat goodies and then go about trading their candy with each other. This scene from a 2019 Walmart commercial illustrates the concepts of gains from trade, bartering, and mutually beneficial transactions. Each child only trades an amount they are willing to give up and aren’t forced to trade with each other. After the exchange, both are better off than they were before the meeting.
Thanks to Brian Lynch for the recommendation!
Kyle MacDonald started with a red paperclip and ended up with a house. Trade and barter requires a double coincidence of wants, but Kyle was able to find people willing to give up something he valued more than his holdings. Mutually beneficial exchange makes both parties better off. This is a great clip to start the process of discussing why trading can grow an economy and why centrally planned economies are harder to coordinate.
Thanks to @AlcovyEconomics on Twitter for the clip!
Meemaw is having a garage sale and have asked Missy and George to help out. When George questions the pricing decisions of the junk for sale, Meemaw explains that she starts prices high so that people can negotiate and feel like they saved some money, which is another way of arguing that she’s trying to let the customers experience some consumer surplus. When Missy & George try to negotiate for better pay, they realize that it may not work out.
Chris’s grandfather gives him a rare dollar bill for his birthday, but Chris doesn’t know about it at the time. The entire episode follows this dollar bill through the city of Quahog and shows the variety of people that interact with the same dollar. The concept of the velocity of money focuses on how many times a single bill can circulate throughout the economy. When a dollar is creator, assuming it isn’t leaked through the money system, it’s value is much more than the actual dollar amount at which it’s printed.
This clip is 10 minutes long (out of a 20-minute episode). There are some parts that may not be suitable for the classroom, so please watch in its entirety before showing in class.
Thanks to Michael Coon for the submission! Check him out on Twitter!
You don’t like pickles, but your friend does? That works out well for these two as Buckwheat buys Porky’s pickle from him for 2 cents. What a quick example for a mutually beneficial transactions.
Jason Bourne, played by Matt Damon, asks a cash-strapped young woman (Franka Potente) for a lift while Conklin (Chris Cooper) musters all of his forces to find him. Both parties have something that the other one needs, so a mutually beneficial trade occurs. This clip really highlights the concept of double coincidence of wants.