Intuitive Econ

A macroeconomic worksheet on Gross Domestic Product requiring students to: 1. Calculate GDP using the Value-Added Approach, Income Approach, and Expenditure Approach in order to understand how and why GDP should be the same no matter which method is used. 2. Discriminate between whether or not a product or activity would be included in a country's GDP for a given year. 3. Calculate GDP using the income and/or expenditure accounts for a hypothetical country. 4. Identify which component of ove

This is a short exercise designed to get students comfortable with graphing supply and demand curves as well as to understand the concept of equilibrium price and quantity. By the end of this activity students will be able to: Graph a supply and demand curve given a supply and demand schedule Identify the equilibrium price and quantity in a market Identify whether a given price results in a surplus or shortage of a good Identify whether a given price will exert upward or downward pressure on t

This worksheet provides students with practice calculating both nominal GDP and Real GDP using the production approach as well as practice calculating the GDP Deflator and inflation.

This worksheet requires students to examine the economic impact of applying a binding price ceiling in the market for gasoline as well as to calculate and compare the resulting amount of economic welfare generated by such a policy. After completing this worksheet, students will be able to: -Identify the areas representing consumer, producer, and economic surplus in addition to deadweight loss. -Calculate the values for consumer, producer, and economic surplus. -Identify whether a price control

A worksheet to help introduce students to the concept of a negative externality and visualize such an externality using a market diagram. Students are asked to compute the total private benefits, total private costs, and net private benefits for a smoker consuming a given number of cigarettes and then identifying the "optimal" number of cigarettes this smoker will choose to smoke in order to maximize their net private benefits. They are then also provided information regarding the external cos

This worksheet requires students to: 1. Calculate approximate real income per person in the United States over the past 60 years. 2. Compare the growth rate of real GDP over a period to the growth rate of real GDP per capita to understand how changes in a country's population affect living standard over time. 3. Use the rule of 70 to estimate the amount of time it will take for a country's standard of living to double (assuming constant growth in RGDP/capita).

After completing this worksheet, students will be able to: 1. Calculate percent change using the midpoint method and use the percent change in price and quantity demanded to calculate the measure of the price elasticity of demand along a demand curve. 2. Discriminate between products characterized by elastic vs. inelastic demand. 3. Identify the relative elasticity of a demand curve based upon its relative steepness. 4. Calculate the total revenue earned by a firm. 5. Predict how a change

This worksheet requires students to discriminate between fixed costs, variable costs, and total costs, as well as calculate the marginal product of labor and graph both the total product and marginal product curves.

This worksheet is designed to provide students with a chance to practice calculating the different measures of economic costs as well as gain an understanding of the shape of the various cost curves and the relation between them. Students are required to: 1. Calculate the following measures at different levels of output: Average Total Cost, Marginal Cost, Average Fixed Cost, and Average Variable Cost. 2. Graph each of the four cost curves and investigate the relationship between marginal cost

This front side of this worksheet asks students to apply an excise tax in a market and to identify and calculate each of the following: -The tax wedge -The resulting after-tax quantity exchanged -The new after-tax price buyers will be forced to pay -The new after-tax price sellers will receive -The tax revenue collected by the government -The tax incidence on both consumers and producers The back side requires students to: -Apply four differently-sized excise taxes to a market -Calculate the

This worksheet is designed to help guide students in the process of examining how a change in supply or demand will ultimately affect the equilibrium price and quantity of a good or service. Students are given four shift factors and asked to identify whether each would affect supply or demand and in which direction it would shift the curve. They are then to create a supply and demand diagram and illustrate the change in order to see how the change would affect equilibrium price and quantity. Th

An intuitive walk through examining what happens to a market when an excise tax is imposed. After completing this worksheet students will be able to: -Model the effects of imposing a tax on producers -Model the effects of imposing a tax on consumers -Identify the resulting equilibrium quantity exchanged in a market after an excise tax has been imposed -Calculate the amount of tax revenue generated by a tax -Discriminate between the new price buyers pay after imposing a tax and the new price sel

This worksheet requires students to use cost curves for a firm in order to predict it's profitability at various prices. In addition it requires students to consider whether, when the firm is earning negative economic profits, the firm would be better off operating at a loss in the short run or shutting down and simply paying their fixed costs. It is meant to help students easily identify whether a firm is earning positive or negative profits (or just breaking even) as well as understand the sh

This worksheet requires students to: 1. Calculate the firm's Total Revenue, Marginal Revenue, Total Cost (based on ATC), Marginal Cost, and Profit at various levels of output. 2. Graph the firm's Demand, MR, and MC curves. 3. Identify the profit-maximizing level of output and profit as well as the profit-maximizing rule (MR=MC).

This worksheet requires students to: 1. Calculate Total Revenue, Marginal Revenue, and Profit for a non-price discriminating monopolist. 2. Graph the firm's Demand, MR, MC, and ATC curves as well as illustrate the area that represents the firm's max profit. 3. Identify the profit-maximizing quantity of output for a monopolist as well as their profit-maximizing price and equilibrium average total cost.

This worksheet helps students to: 1. Visualize the relationship between the aggregate price level and the aggregate quantity of goods and services demanded (RGDP). 2. Visualize changes in the Aggregate Demand curve due to a change in autonomous spending. 3. Understand why the Aggregate Demand curve is downward sloping (due to the wealth and interest rate effects). 4. Decompose a change in overall spending into its component parts (identify whether it is due to a change in consumption, invest

A more advanced externalities worksheet requiring students to solve a system of two equations in order to identify the profit-maximizing quantity of output for a coal-fired powerplant and then compare this outcome to the socially-optimal level of output. The back side features the graph for a positive externality (flu shots) and requires students to interpret the information it contains.

After completing this worksheet, students will be able to: 1. Identify and calculate the following measures: tax wedge, after-tax quantity, new after-tax price buyers pay, new after-tax price sellers receive, the per-unit tax incidence on buyers, the per-unit tax incidence on sellers, the tax revenue collected as a result of an excise tax, and the resulting deadweight loss from a tax. 2. Identify what it is that determines who bears the greater burden of taxation (the relative elasticity of su

A macroeconomic worksheet requiring students to analyze the US economy at two different points in time (the 1960's and 1970's). They are to identify the relevant external shocks which would push the economy out of long run equilibrium as well as walk through the long-run macroeconomic equilibrium adjustment process as explained by way of extended unemployment exerting upward or downward pressure on aggregate nominal wages.

This worksheet provides students with practice constructing a price index and using such an index to calculate inflation. It also helps to better understand the difference between nominal and real income and how changes in inflation affect an individuals true purchasing power.