Does the government really control the prices of consumer products? Scholars look into the concept of price signals and how they relate to the overall buying and selling power in a market economy. The 12th lesson of a 21-part Economic Lowdown podcast series challenges scholars to interpret the idea of demand. They investigate the impact of people spending more on something than they did before and look into price gouging as well as other unfair practices.

Concepts

prices, market economies

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Additional Tags

social studies

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Instructional Ideas

• Use current business advertisements to determine if any price signals are evident
• Invite a local business person as a guest speaker to talk about how demand influences prices
  

Classroom Considerations

• Students must have online access if assigning the podcast as homework 

Pros

• Materials include written transcripts of the podcast
  
• Resource provides a video of the podcast as an alternative for visual learners 

Cons

• None

Common Core

RH.6-8.1 RH.6-8.2 RH.6-8.3 RH.9-10.1 RH.9-10.2 RH.9-10.3 RH.11-12.1 RH.11-12.2 RH.11-12.3