Saturday Night Live — Chance The Rapper’s 2nd Favorite Things

Chance the Rapper is grew up in Chicago, which is nicknamed “The Second City.” In honor of his hometown, Chance the Rapper (along with Kyle Mooney) shares some of his other favorite second-best items, which he considers better than the first. This is a fun introduction to substitutes, or even monopolistic competition and product differentiation. This could be used in an upper-level class to discuss ordinal preferences or transitivity.

Thanks to Kim Holder and Darshak Patel for tweeting this video!

2019 0

Saturday Night Live — Bartering

When introducing money we usually start with a historical lesson on money. Barter economics is always discussed. Here is a funny news item that talks about a man who tried to barter but got arrested. You can also use it to talk about unit of account because they talk about bail being set at 4 alligators.

Thanks to James Tierney for the clip and description.

2018 0

Saturday Night Life — Toys ‘R Us

When teaching students about the different types of firm structures, we always discuss monopolistic competition and how firms try to differentiate their products to get positive economic profits. This short clip shows how Toys R Us is staying open for 87 hours straight to differentiate itself from other toy stores around the holiday season.

Thanks to James Tierney for the clip and description.

2018 0

Saturday Night Live — Chris Rock on Minimum Wage

Chris Rock explains on Weekend Update how a minimum wage (a price floor) is above equilibrium wage. Firms may want to pay lower wages, but an effective price floor is one that is set above the equilibrium such that firms aren’t able to pay the lower wages. Thanks to Jodie Beggs for finding the Jeopardy reference that led me to finding this video.

2017 0