Home

Wisconsin Economic Standard
D.12.2

Market Supply & Demand / Unemployment and Inflation

• 2--Making Clothes and Houses Out of Wheat - Students perform a simulation that shows how increases in agricultural productivity allowed Neolithic farming cultures to raise their living standard. p. 6
• 4--How Did the Black Death Raise Living Standards in Europe? - Students calculate the costs and decisions of an English landlord before and after the Black Death. p. 20 
• 8--Adam Smith and the Market Economy - 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. 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 
• 10--How the Industrial Revolution Raised Living Standards - Students perform a simulation that illustrates division of labor and improved capital goods.  They study and discuss a reading on Josiah Wedgwood which illustrates those and other causes of productivity.   p.54 
• 11--Japan's Economic Miracle - Students discuss factors contributing to Japan's economic growth after World War II.  p. 59.

• Unit 2, Lesson 1: The New World Was an Old World - Native American cultures were vastly different from the culture of the Europeans they encountered.  Yet, the behavior of Native American people can be understood by means of the same economic principles with help explain European behavior.  Why?  pp. 26-32
• Unit 2, Lesson 2: Did Native Americans Act Economically? - This lesson gives two examples of puzzling behavior that can be explained by applying economic reasoning to the historical situation.  pp. 33-37

• 1:  A Parking Lot Full of Incentives - Students become familiar with the profit motive of market economies, then with incentives in command economies.  Both systems are summarized.  p.1
• 3:  A Tale of Two Countries - Students compare the historical development, both political and economic, in two former Soviet republics.  They draw conclusions about the historical experiences of a country and the successful development of a market economy.  p. 23
• 4:  Klips and Kupons - Students participate in a simulation where they discover how a change in the money supply can cause changes in the price level.  Some of the consequences of inflation and hyperinflation are also examined.  p. 43
• 5:  Public to Private - Students write the rules of a simple game, then consider the more complicated rules and regulations appropriate for a market economy and the difficulties that economies in transition face.  Students also examine legislation designed to move some agricultural markets away from federal price supports to a more market-based approach.  p. 59
• 6:  All For One, One For All--Well Maybe: Problems Within a Tightly Controlled Industrial Structure - Students discuss the consequences of monopolistic markets.  They experience the effects of price controls and identify how shortages are eliminated in a market economy.  p. 67
• 7:  The Money Maze - Students learn about the importance of established financial markets and the lack of those markets in many transition economies.  p. 75
• 8: Public to Private - Students analyze proposals to privatize the public school system in the United States.  They then consider the difficulties of privatization of state property in the Baltics, eastern Europe and the republics of the former Soviet Union.
• 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

• In section Fundamental Economics, see exhibits:
• Economic Systems
• Productivity
• In section MacroEconomics, see exhibit:  Inflation
• In section MicroEconomics, see exhibit:  Supply and Demand

Developed by 

Lynn Kirby, Ph.D.,
Larry Weiser, Ph.D.

• Teaching Wisconsin's K-12 Economics Standards
• Topic Index
• Grade Level Index
• WI Standards:  D.12.1, D.12.3, D.12.4, D.12.5, D.12.6, D.12.7, D.12.8, D.12.9, D.12.10, D.12.11, D.12.12, D.12.13, D.12.14