Economists often need practical examples of the propositions discussed in class. Many such examples are provided in Trading Places, which, in addition to being an entertaining movie, illustrates a number of important points about economics, including the role of property rights, the costs of...

The chapter provides examples of economics humor that come directly from published economic literature, and that could perhaps be integrated into upper-level undergraduate course discussions, or included, as an occasional break from traditional texts and articles, on reading lists in graduate...

The classic noir film The Third Man tells a story of a staged death, an over-inquisitive friend and a hopeless lover, in the dark world of postwar Vienna. It is also an excellent demonstration of the effects of price controls and rationing, and of the unpleasant consequences of the resulting...

Arguably, the types of examples used by texts in examining Coasian bargains that address negative externalities are not the types of situations or stories that typically appeal to traditional college and university students. The chapter provides a more modern story for principles instructors to...

Using clickers, students may respond to a professor's questions in class by pressing a button on a device resembling a television remote control; then view the frequency distribution of the class's answers. In this way, the professor may test the students' knowledge during the lecture, providing...

Using a value-neutral classroom experiment, the chapter examines potential grade improvements from cheating by removing the stigma from the activity and by allowing extensive access to others' answers. The authors find that students do not appraise partners' answers as correct or incorrect and...

The chapter seeks to facilitate the teaching and learning of income tax evasion behavior, which is tacitly illegal, by providing a balanced view of the factors that motivate a taxpayer either to comply with the Internal Revenue Code or engage in income tax evasion. The context is one of a...

A large body of literature investigates different aspects of the undergraduate economics major, including how it can become more popular, effective and relevant to today's students. An additional body of literature identifies key student and curriculum characteristics that promote success in the...

The chapter investigates factors that influence adults' knowledge of economics and personal finance. The authors surveyed a sample of adults with a norm-referenced exam that includes questions specific to economics knowledge and questions specific to financial knowledge, along with a background...

The novel The Gilded Age, A Tale of Today by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner tells the tale of crony capitalism in the United States after the Civil War and is the book that gave 'The Gilded Age' era its name. The chapter uses the public choice framework to analyse themes in the novel and...