The authors of this article explain how two Veconlab class "experiments" can be used to clarify common points of confusion about the cost curves (sunk, marginal, and average). In each case, the experiment can be motivated, framed, or explained with environmental policy applications that are provided in the suggestions-for-discussion…

The authors of this article propose a simple exercise of monopoly pricing to illustrate complex theoretical results on the welfare effects of group pricing. By exposing students to this exercise, they aim to bridge a gap between the standard textbook analysis of group pricing and more general results in the literature and clarify some students'…

One of the fundamental topics taught in the microeconomics class is minimizing economic costs. It includes understanding the concept of derivatives and applying them. However, most of the first-year undergraduate students find calculus difficult to understand, which also results in poor knowledge of optimization. We use the method based on the…

In this article, the author describes the structure and content of a video game that she developed for a hybrid principles of microeconomics course that consists of two 50-minute lectures and a 50-minute online portion per week. The game comprises seven modules, each of which was assigned to be played during the course of the semester for the…

The authors adapted a lab-in-the-field experiment emulating the dynamic extraction of a fishery to create a Web-based classroom experiment. The game includes a multi-player version analogous to an open-access problem and a single-player version analogous to the social planner problem. This game is helpful in introductory microeconomics courses to…

The author examined whether game play improves students' comprehension, attendance, and exam performance. The author designed three games; 120 students in introductory microeconomics classes participated in these experiments. The evidence showed that game play enhances students' attendance, comprehension, and exam performance. It also showed that…

Health insurance policy is a current topic of concern for the United States. The classroom game discussed here provides students with a thorough understanding of some of the policy options under debate, in addition to demonstrating the classic problem of adverse selection. Students received probabilities of encountering a variety of medical…

In this article, the author considers the merits of two classes of profit maximization problems: those involving perfectly competitive firms with quadratic and cubic cost functions. While relatively easy to develop and solve, problems based on quadratic cost functions are too simple to address a number of important issues, such as the use of…

The relevance of the problem stated in the article is that in conditions of nonstationary economy the modification of existing approaches and methods is necessary during the formation of the capital. These methods allow taking into account the heterogeneity of factors' change in time and the purpose of the development of a particular company,…

Adam Smith's moral philosophy can be used to introduce economics students to the important idea of transactions costs. The author provides a brief background in this article to Smith's moral philosophy and connects it to the costs of transacting in a way that fits easily into the standard principles of microeconomics classroom. By doing…

This article presents an applied research framework that can be helpful in tuition and net price policy discussions. It is the classic microeconomic concept of market demand applied to enrollment management in higher education. The policy relevance includes measuring a response to price. For example, the results of this model will allow the…

The authors shed light on the original equipment manufacturer's strategic behavior in the duopoly aftermarket. The original equipment manufacturer, firm 1, captures via its foremarket price some fraction of the aftermarket consumer surplus, where that surplus is generated by consumption of its own and its competitor's aftermarket products. The…

The authors use a relatively simple diagram accompanied by mathematical analysis to compare two pricing strategies: price-quantity packages and a two-part tariff. This is done both from the monopolist's point of view and from the welfare point of view. The authors show that in the case of two consumer types, the price-quantity packages strategy…

The author establishes a property of supply for a competitive firm: Assuming differentiability of the production frontier, linearly independent price vectors have disjoint image sets under the supply mapping. This property supports the main results. First, the author drew a simple proof of McFadden's proposition that differentiability of the…

Attempts to clarify the concepts of, and the link between, fixed costs and sunk costs. Argues that the root of confusion is the inconsistency in defining the term fixed costs. Consistently defines fixed and sunk costs, and describes how instructors must teach under these definitions. (RLH)