How elastic are rubber bands? There's more than one way to answer this question. The word "elasticity" is commonly used to describe things that have a stretchy quality to them. You might try to answer the question by stretching a rubber band across your finger and shooting it across the room. To an economist, however, elasticity can have a whole other meaning. Learn more in this episode of The Economic Lowdown.

Young children are not likely to think past their piggy banks when it comes to safe places to set money aside for those special items. In this short e-book from our Ella's Adventures series, they'll learn that a bank account offers security and a return on savings.

Young children are not likely to think past their piggy banks when it comes to safe places to set money aside for those special items. In this short course from our Ella's Adventures series, your students will learn that a bank account offers security and a return on their savings.

Shopping for and owning things are exciting and emotional experiences. We take time and energy thinking about what to buy and the role it will play in our lives. In this Page One Economics®: Focus on Finance article, we look at the endowment effect—how we place more value on items we own than on items we don’t.

This is a 5 minute video that will explain the how the Laws of Demand and Supply will interact to form equilibrium point on a graph. This video will meet the standard EPF.3 (b)

Teachers may find accompanying handouts for this video and others that are part of this series at https://www.econlowdown.org/

What are the ethical considerations for researchers who use data? This data primer describes standards for gathering, analyzing, storing, and distributing data for new data users and serves as a reference for advanced data users.

Students learn how to determine the authority of an information source. They examine different sources of information that all use the same dataset. Students define each source’s type of authority and recognize the context in which the data are being used. They learn to consider the source of authority for various information sources, and understand the ways that information sources with different levels of authority can base their credibility on the same dataset.

Students learn that economic forces have an impact beyond the financial world. First, they learn that Progressive Era public health reforms inspired a commercial response to the growing demand for sanitation through the rapid increase in bathroom-fixture production. Students then use FRED, economic data from Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, to analyze how bathroom-fixture production changed throughout the 1920s. They examine primary documents—1920s advertising—to see how companies fused the Progressive Era with the new consumer culture. Finally, students complete the lesson by responding to AP U.S. History-style short-answer questions.

The March 2022 issue of Page One Economics covers the topics of income and wealth through the lens of racial inequality. Learn the difference between income and wealth, how the racial wealth gap has endured over time, and the reasons that certain groups have been limited in their wealth-building potential.

The lump of labor fallacy holds that there is a fixed amount of work to be done, which determines the number of jobs in an economy. If this were true, new jobs could not be generated, just reallocated. This essay provides some clear thinking about the role of labor in an economy.

Students learn how to analyze a research question by identifying its component subtopics through a concept mapping exercise. They watch a short demonstration of the concept mapping process and apply it to the class topic. In small groups, students identify stakeholders related to one of the subtopics identified. They then locate sample reports or datasets created by stakeholders and record their findings on the concept map, ending with a class discussion of their findings.

Ever feel as if you are paying the price for someone else's "deal"? Perhaps you are choking on the pollution from a foundry where cheap widgets are made. That spillover effect is called an externality. There are positive ones, too.

In this video (6 minutes long) students will learn about how externalities can affect supply, demand and ultimately equilibrium. This video will aid in review of standard EFP. 3 since students will see how a supply and demand graph can shift as a result of costs / benefits of externalities.

Take a stroll through each screen of the online FAFSA to see what information you'll need on hand to complete the application quickly and accurately.

The five key elements of a data citation are author, title, distributor, date, and persistent identifier. In this interactive lesson, students learn about creating good data citations.

The FYE 105: Financial Literacy Curriculum Unit was developed for use in a First-Year Experience course to provide students with an understanding of: the relationship between human capital development and potential income and the chances of staying employed; budgeting; credit cards; and credit rights and responsibilities. The curriculum was implemented in an urban community college FYE course and was successful. We provide the curriculum for others who may wish to use it in a similar course.

The second episode of our podcast series, The Economic Lowdown, discusses the building blocks of the economy, the factors of production.

Oil prices affect the U.S. economy in many ways. For example, fluctuations in the price of oil can influence inflation, unemployment, and disposable income. Some local economies with close ties to the oil industry, however, are affected even more directly in both positive and negative ways. The May 2015 issue covers one recent example of the local impact of oil prices.

Payday loans are convenient and provide FAST cash to cover emergency situations or help pay a borrower’s expenses from one paycheck to the next. But the fee-based structure of payday lending is quite different from a traditional loan, and laws vary among the states. The April 2019 edition of Page One Economics®: Focus on Finance takes a look at the structure and fees that make these loans costly.

This video provides a basic overview of unemployment and how it is measured. It also provides an understanding of the FOMC's role in promoting maximum employment and price stability.