Economics Wisconsin

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Wisconsin Economic Standard
D.12.10

Competition / 
Market Supply & Demand

Analyze the role that supply and demand, competition, prices, incentives, and profits play in determining what is produced and distributed in a competitive market system

Economic Concepts
Supply  ||  Demand  ||  Competition  ||  Prices  ||  Incentives  || Profits
Production  ||  Possibility curve 

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Links to Content Information

blue check mark Chicago Board of Trade - Learn everything you ever wanted to know and more about the world's oldest, largest and leading futures and options marketplace.
blue check mark Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory - This site gives us a rare and intimate view of a community of workers at the moment of its dissolution.
blue check mark Consumer Price Index -  Compare the value of a U.S. dollar on different dates and calculate the Consumer Price Index.
blue check mark CyberEconomics: A Semi-Interactive, Almost-Multimedia Way to Learn Economics, by Robert E. Schenk.  
blue check mark Economic Statistics Briefing Room - This is a collection of easy-to-read charts with current information on U.S. employment in the Civilian Labor Force, Unemployment, Non Farm Payrolls, and Productivity.
blue check mark Supply and Demand Model: Net Graphics
blue check mark US Business Cycle Indicators - Contains a set of 256 data series commonly known as the US Business Cycle Indicators, used for tracking and predicting US business activity. The data is grouped into 16 categories.

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Links to Lesson Plans and other Suggested Teaching Strategies

blue arrow $10 Billion to Host the Winter Olympic Games: Is it worth it? - Grades 9-12. Students analyze the costs and benefits of hosting the Winter Olympics. 
blue arrow Andersonville Prison: an Economic Microcosm - High School.  Development of an economic system for a Civil War prison camp; Allocation of scarce resources. Learn about scarcity, economic wants, command economic systems, market economic systems, and markets and price. �Nebraska Council on Economic Education
blue arrow 'Be All You Can Be'...For Minimum Wage? - Grades 9-12. Students will hypothesize economic reasons for a decline in people volunteering for military service.
blue arrow Consumer's Resource Handbook - Provides advice and consumer tips on: car repair, purchase, and leasing; shopping from home; avoiding consumer and investment fraud; home improvement and financing; choosing and using credit cards wisely; and much more.
blue arrow Demand and Supply On-line - High School.  Basic discussion of demand and supply and the determinants of demand and supply. Includes self-quiz for students on understanding shifts in 
demand and supply. �Kim Sosin
blue arrow The Economics of Professional Sports: If You Build It, Will They Come? - The activities in this lesson are designed to help students understand why economists generally oppose subsidies for sport franchises and why subsidies may make political sense even if they do not make economic sense.
blue arrow Entrepreneur - Grade 10 - 12. The students work in groups of four to establish a profitable business that also helps the economy of the community.
blue arrow How can entrepreneurs control costs? - High School.  Students examine the difference between fixed and variable costs, make predictions and recommend actions for a hypothetical business. From Entrepreneurship and the U.S. Economy, �National Council on Economic Education.
blue arrow How has the Constitution shaped the economy in the U.S.? - Class discussion and small group task identifying the six characteristics of a market economy and the provisions in the constitution  that support a market economy. From Focus on Economics: Civics and Government, �National Council on Economic Education.
blue arrow I'll Trade You a Bag of Chips, Two Cookies, and $60,000 for Your Tuna Fish Sandwich - This lesson is intended to serve as a culminating activity for the investigation of supply and demand.
blue arrow Is the Price of Gasoline Really Too High? - This lesson is designed to help students explore the issues associated with pricing in a market system, considering that producers must compete for consumer dollars, and with price determined by the interaction of supply and demand. 
blue arrow Mad Cattlemen Sue Oprah - Grades 9-12. A lawsuit filed by a group of Texas cattlemen  charged that a 1996 Winfrey show about mad cow disease drove down cattle prices. Students will use their understanding of the determinants of supply and demand as well as changes in equilibrium prices to act as expert witnesses on behalf of the both the plaintiff and the defendant.
blue arrow Rationing Transplants: An Ethical Problem - Grades 9-12. Students will explain the consequences of a non-market rationing process, evaluate the consequences of restricting organ transplants to U.S. citizens, and suggest alternative policies to reduce the scarcity of organs for transplant. (Students' version also available from link on page.)
blue arrow Supply and Demand - This lesson allows for personal involvement in the concept of supply and demand which helps the students see how it relates to their everyday life. 
blue arrow A Synthesis of Gross Domestic Product, Price Indexes and Price Changes - A teaching unit that helps students understand the relationships between current gross domestic product (GDP), the consumer price index (CPI), and corresponding prices changes. 
blue arrow Tapped Dry: How Do You Solve a Water Shortage? - Grades 9-12. The major issue this lesson revolves around is that the supply curve for water is vertical (i.e., the amount of water is fixed.) This means that no matter how high the price, the market will not increase the quantity.
blue arrow To Keep the Strike Going or End It? That Was the Question - Grades 9-12. This lesson helps students understand the reasons for and effects of the NBA strike in 1998.
blue arrow What's Happening in the New Economy? - Students will understand and apply the concept of price discrimination based on market power, the ability to influence prices and output in a market.
blue arrow Other Web Sites - This page lists web sites offering a wealth of lesson plans for teaching economics, in addition to these lesson plans.

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List of Curricular Materials and Learning Activities

blue push pin Energy, Economics and the Environment: Case Studies and Teaching Activities for High School  by the Indiana Department of Education.  Students examine the economic issues involved in preserving the environment in four units:  Water Pollution, Forest Management, Renewable Energy Resources, and Global Warming.  Available through the Indiana Council for Economic Education.
blue push pin Focus: High School Economics, from Economics America (search catalogue), available from Economics Wisconsin. Relevant lessons: 
  • 1--Scarcity, Choice, and Decisions - This lesson provides examples of individual and group decision making with specific situations involving opportunity costs, pp. 1-4 
  • 4--The Market Never Stands Still - Students study the factors (determinants) that affect the position of supply and demand curves in order to understand why market prices and output levels fluctuate, pp. 24-35.
blue push pin Focus on Economics: United States History, from Economics America (search catalogue), available from Economics Wisconsin. Relevant lessons: 
  • 2--Do the Right Thing: Free the Slaves, Avoid the War - Students analyze actions taken by people in 1799 as they attempted to stop a practice which today is illegal and widely condemned, pp.11-22.
  • 3--Why Would You Raise Chickens When You Don't Like Eggs? or Why Did Farmers Specialize? - Students explain the impact that barter had on the decline of subsistence farming and the growth of single-crop farming, pp.23-33.
  • 4--Who Should Make the Food Safe? - Students gain insight into ways in which government regulations affect the behavior of producers, pp.35-44.
  • 5--The Buffalo Are Back - Students examine the demise of the buffalo and the incentives related to conserving them. pp.45-53
  • 6--Why Don't Cowboys Ever Ride Into the Sunset? - Students consider why cowboy culture continues to exercise influence on popular media and society, even in urban America, when the days of the cowboy lasted for only 25 years.  pp.55-61
  • 7--How Can Big Business Make Money from Tariffs? - Students investigate the impact of tariffs on businesses and consumers, then generalize about how incentives influence special interest legislation.  pp.63-73
  • 8--Who Invented Bad Breath and Why? - Students identify examples of incentives that influence human behavior.  pp.75-85.
  • 9--Prohibition Then; MADD Today - Students evaluate the consequences of the policies of Prohibition and MADD on consumers' behavior.  pp.86-96
  • 10--Why Would White Baseball Club Owners Sign Black Players? - After a discussion of racial barriers, students examine the incentives that influenced the decisions of baseball club owners and African-American players.
blue push pin Economics and the Environment, from Economics America (search catalogue), available from Economics Wisconsin. Relevant lessons: 
  • Unit 2, Lesson 4:  The Cost of Pollution: What is Being Given Up? - Students look at costs in general and costs associated with pollution and pollution prevention in particular.  p.39
  • Unit 2, Lesson 5:  How Clean is Clean Enough? - Students begin by looking at various social goals before focusing on the goal of allocative efficiency--a weighing of the benefits and costs. p. 52
  • Unit 3, Lesson 7:  We're All in This Together! - Students look at the public good quality of many natural resources and the effect of that quality on how resources are used. p.78
  • Unit 4, Lesson 9:  Weighing the Pluses and Minuses: Benefit-Cost Analysis - Students learn how benefit-cost analysis attempts to find the "right" amount of non-marketed products to produce.  p.104
  • Unit 4, Lesson 11:  Is Life Truly Priceless? - Students discover that society in general does not place an infinite value on a life.  p.124
  • Unit 5, Lesson 13:  Regulation: Is Just Saying "No" Enough? - Students learn how regulation is applied and consider the economic incentives associated with compliance.  p.147
  • Unit 7, Lesson 18:  Recycling: A Tale of Two Markets - Students look at the two markets (collection and reprocessing) through which recyclable materials pass; they learn how costs are reflected, and why too much of a good thing can sometimes be a bad thing.  p.202
  • Unit 7, Lesson 19:  How Many Children Can Mother Earth Stand? - The effect of economic development on population growth is illustrated, pp.213-224.
blue push pin Economics and the Environment: Eco-Detectives, from Economics America (search catalogue), available from Economics Wisconsin. Relevant lessons: 
  • 1--The Problem of the Homeless Salmon - Students consider the reasons the salmon population is declining, based on benefits, costs, and incentives, pp.1-12
  • 3--Own It or Lose It - This lesson focuses on the concept that people are more likely to take better care of the things they own and value, pp.22-26.
  • 4--The Environment: Who Loves Ya, Baby? - Students study why workers destroy the beauty that they love and use for recreation by working in open-pit mines, pp. 27-31.
  • 7--Using Rewards to Protect Endangered Species - Although the buffalo was nearly extinct, they are back. Why?  Will the African elephant go the way of the American buffalo?   pp.84-93 
  • 9--Why Are There So Few Whales and So Many Chickens? - Students explain the difference in whale and chicken populations in terms of benefits and incentives, pp.63-67
  • 11--Can Insecticides Help Us Fight Cancer?, pp.77-83
  • 13--Will There Be Food For You? - When Earth's population grows, why don't people on Earth starve?, pp. 94-103.
  • 14--Do We Make Too Much Stuff? - Students explain how prices influence the availability of natural resources, pp.104-107
blue push pin World History: Focus on Economics - From Economics America (search catalogue), available from Economics Wisconsinn.  Relevant lessons: 
  • 3--The Decline of Spain - Students calculate the efficiency of several alternate forms of transportation in 12th Century Africa  p. 31 
  • 7--The Great Tulip Boom - Students perform a simulation of the tulip bulb market in 17th century Netherlands in order to understand the role of speculation in economic booms. p.37 
  • 8--Adam Smith and the Market Economy - p. 42 
  • 9--The Industrial Revolution - Students decide whether each of a number of characteristics of French and of British society in the 1800s had a positive or negative effect on economic growth.  p. 49 
blue push pin Economies in Transition: Command to Market, from Economics America (search catalogue), available from Economics Wisconsin. Lesson 10: Market or Command:  Which is Best for the Environment? - Students play the roles of entrepreneurs in a market economy and managers in a command economy.  They make decisions about how to make their product given information on cost and availability of the resources.  The effect of ignoring resource costs in both economic systems is discussed.  p.101
blue push pin United States History: Eyes on the Economy, Vol. 1: Through the Civil War, from Economics America (search catalogue), available from Economics Wisconsin.  Unit 6, Lesson 2:  Productivity Raises Output - This lesson explains how Eli Whitney's cotton gin increased productivity and made growing cotton more profitable.  It led the South to specialize in cotton production.
blue push pin Virtual Economics: An Interactive Center for Economic Education, Version 2 - Each exhibit includes teaching tips, background information, a list of lessons, and video and audio clips that give additional information about the topic.  Available from Economics America (search catalogue). 
  • In section Fundamental Economics, see exhibits: 
    • Economic Institutions and Incentives
    • Productivity
  • In section MicroEconomics, see exhibits:
    • Supply and Demand
    • Markets and Prices
    • Competition and Market Structures
    • Market Failures
blue push pin Focus: International Economics, from Economics America (search catalogue), available from Economics Wisconsin. Relevant lessons:  Lesson 3:  Trade and Specialization - Students participate in a classroom simulation to learn how economic welfare is increased by trade and specialization.  To explain this outcome, they apply the principle of comparative advantage to their trading activity.  p.19

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National Content Standards 7 and  9.

    Scroll down the linked pages to locate the grade 12 benchmarks.

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Email an expert

    Professor Mark Schug - University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

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Developed by 
Lynn Kirby, Ph.D., Education and Technology Consultant and
Larry Weiser, Ph.D., Program Director, EconomicsWisconsin
University of Wisconsin--Stevens Point