Learn

Each lesson plan combines a 5-minute read of an online blog post and then a series of fact questions and an analytic activity. The lesson plans provide a mini economics course because each one includes current events facts and an economic concept.

Learn With Elaine: Ketchup Packet Shortages

One of many supply and demand problems during the coronavirus pandemic, ketchup packet shortages hit homes, bars, and restaurants.

Learn With Elaine: What We Don’t Know We Own

Based on the six hidden rules of ownership, from Netflix passwords to airplane seats, what we don’t know we own shapes our behavior.

Learn With Elaine: How Covid Changed College Applications

By suspending the SAT and ACT, Ivy League colleges diminished transaction costs and made it easier to apply.

Learn With Elaine: A Bucatini Mystery

The product differentiation that led everyone to love bucatini also created a mystery when it disappeared from supermarket shelves.

Learn With Elaine: How Subway Competes

Sometimes competition can determine how a fast food firm like Subway behaves.

Learn With Elaine: Elephants and Avocados

The tragedy of the commons explains why avocados can be more important than elephants.

Learn With Elaine: How Fans Impact Athletes

Because of the Observer Effect, athletes’ performance could change when fans affect their human capital.

Learn With Elaine: Superhero Ownership

Even though it does not really exist, a Marvel superhero is intellectual property that a company like Disney can own.

Learn With Elaine: How Transparency Transformed Food Shopping

When the development of cellophane let us have self-service food shopping for meat and produce, it started a retailing revolution that economists call creative destruction.