Economics is often taught at a level of abstraction that can hinder some students from gaining basic intuition. However, lecture and textbook presentations can be complemented with classroom exercises in which students make decisions and interact. The approach can increase interest in and...

This paper describes how to set up a classroom exercise in which students see private signals and make public decisions in sequence. A pattern of conforming decisions in this context is called an information cascade. Once a cascade starts, it is rational for students to ignore their private...

This paper uses the technique of experimental economics to set up a classroom situation where students learn to make Bayesian decisions. The exercises allow students to discover for themselves a natural counting heuristic that corresponds to Bayes's rule and is much quicker to use in many...

This paper describes a simple public goods game, implemented with playing cards in a classroom setup. Students choose whether to contribute to the provision of a public good in a situation where it is privately optimal not to contribute, but socially optimal to contribute fully. This exercise...

Economics is often taught at a level of abstraction that can hinder some students from gaining basic intuition. However, lecture and textbook presentations can be complemented with classroom exercises in which students make decisions and interact. The approach can increase interest in and...

This paper describes a classroom exercise that resembles trading in the 'pit' of some financial and futures markets. Playing cards are used to induce supply and demand functions. Instructions and helpful hints are provided. The exercise facilitates an understanding and appreciation of the...

The incentives that arise in markets with asymmetric information are illustrated in the classroom exercise presented here. Student sellers choose both a quality 'grade' and a price for their products. Initially, both prices and grades for all sellers are posted, and buyers select from these...

This paper describes a classroom exercise in which students trade assets of uncertain value in a sequence of market periods. Assets pay one-dollar dividends at the end of each period, but once the dividend is paid there is fixed probability that the asset will be destroyed. Dividends and...

Economics is often taught at a level of abstraction that can hinder some students from gaining basic intuition. However, lecture and textbook presentations can be complemented with classroom exercises in which students make decisions and interact. The approach can increase interest in, and...