Sweet Trade

alex_tabarrok
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‎12-11-2015 12:48 PM

Originally posted by Alex Tabarrok on November 24, 2009.

 

Here is a fun, easy and effective experiment that instructors can use to illustrate the gains from trade.  The instructor puts chocolate bars ("fun-size") or other candy in bags, one bag for each student. (Alternatively, you can use the type of small items that you can find at a dollar store.  Filling the bags is where the most work comes in especially if you have a large class). Students open the bag and are then asked to write down how much they would be willing to pay for the bag's contents.  But before snacking, students are allowed to trade.  After a few minutes of trade, ask the students to write down their valuation again.  Voila!  Gains from trade.  With a few numbers pulled at random from the students you can do a back of the envelope calculation for the total increase in value.  The experiment doesn't take long and the students will appreciate the candy!

 

A hat tip to Randy Simmons who first introduced this experiment to me.

 

More classroom experiments can be found here and here.

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About the Author
Alex Tabarrok is Bartley J. Madden Chair in Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and director of research for The Independent Institute. Tabarrok is co-author with Tyler Cowen of the popular economics blog, Marginal Revolution. His recent research looks at bounty hunters, judicial incentives and elections, crime control, patent reform, methods to increase the supply of human organs for transplant, and the regulation of pharmaceuticals. He is the editor of the books, Entrepreneurial Economics: Bright Ideas from the Dismal Science; The Voluntary City: Choice, Community, and Civil Society; and Changing the Guard: Private Prisons and The Control of Crime. His papers have appeared in the Journal of Law and Economics, Public Choice, Economic Inquiry, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Theoretical Politics, The American Law and Economics Review, Kyklos and many other journals. His popular articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other magazines and newspapers.