Tag: negotiating

Christmas with the Kranks — Christmas Tree Demand

The Kranks are (initially) planning to skip Christmas this year, which means their demand for Christmas trees decreases. When their daughter announces that she’ll be back home for Christmas, the Kranks scramble to try and find a tree. Unfortunately for Luther, there aren’t many trees available because it’s so close to the holidays and he ends up paying full price (instead of a discounted price) for a pathetic tree. When decision-makers don’t have much time to make a purchase (like Luther right before Christmas), their demand is fairly inelastic.

Thanks to Mandy Mandzik for the clip recommendation. Check out her working paper, All I Want for Christmas is an A on My Econ Final: A Holiday-Themed Review Class, for more Christmas-themed economics examples.

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Superstore — Going on Strike

A lot of the employees walked out while on their shift in the hopes of getting Glenn his job back. The regional manager has arrived and is working with Jonah and Amy to see how they can get the employees back to work. Initially, Amy and Jonah ask only for Glenn to have is job back, but they must sign a letter saying that they apologize for walking out. While it seems like a small request, they decide that the employees really deserve more. Part of the goal of unionization is to turn a competitive labor market into a monopoly provider of labor. Through collective bargaining, Amy and Jonah demand more for their group.

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Erin Brockovich — Negotiating Damages

There appears to be a coverup of contamination of the local water supply by PG&E, but the impacts are becoming more visible. In this scene, Ed Masry meets with a PG&E lawyer to “negotiate” a settlement for damages causes by the contamination. While PG&E may not have believe their dumping was causing externalities, it appears that they may have imposed serious external costs on the region. One of the concerns of litigation of this sort involves determining the appropriate value of the reduced quality of life resulting from these external costs.

Thanks to Dawn Renninger for the clip suggestion!

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JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders — Negotiations

In this anime scene, Joseph teachers viewers how to haggle for sandwiches in a market. While shop owners may try to start with a high price for foreigners (perhaps as a price discrimination technique), requesting lower prices may help identify the sellers’ willingness to accept.  The benefit of trade and exchange is a mutual coincidence of wants. The two are able to find an acceptable trade, and thinks to the storyline, we can even calculate consumer and producer surplus!

Thanks to Lynne Tierney and Edison High School for submitting this! Lynne shared that a student in her class shared this video after going through a negotiation simulation.

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Walmart — Negotiations

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!

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Adam Ruins Everything — Revealing Salaries

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.

In this video, Adam goes through notion that sharing salaries is bad for workers, but focuses on how this practice creates information asymmetry in the workplace and gives managers the power to lower wages since workers aren’t well informed.

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Young Sheldon — Haggling Skills

 

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.

 

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Superstore — Negotiating for Higher Wages

Amy wants to ask her boss for a raise, but she’s nervous. Jonah attempts to encourage her to fight for a higher wage because a portion of the wage gap is partly due to women being socialized that negotiating isn’t in their favor. Amy isn’t in the mood for his lecture, and Jonah gives up.

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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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