Macroeconomics Jeopardy

GDP, inflation, and the tools of fiscal and monetary policy, packaged as a review game for econ classes. Copy freely and use phones as the buzzers.

6 categories · 30 clues · Final Jeopardy · everyone buzzes in from their phone

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Every clue on this board

This page is public, so anyone can read the answers — copy the board and swap a few clues before game day.

Basic Concepts

$200
This economic problem arises because human wants are unlimited while the resources available to satisfy them are limited.
What is scarcity?
$400
This cost represents the value of the next-best alternative given up when a choice is made.
What is opportunity cost?
$600
This curve illustrates the maximum combinations of two goods an economy can produce with its available resources and technology.
What is the production possibilities curve?
$800
This economic system relies primarily on supply, demand, and prices, rather than government planning, to allocate resources.
What is a market economy?
$1,000
This concept describes an economy operating on its production possibilities frontier, unable to produce more of one good without producing less of another.
What is productive efficiency?

GDP and Growth

$200
This measure totals the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period.
What is gross domestic product?
$400
This adjustment removes the effect of price changes so that GDP can be compared meaningfully across years.
What is real GDP?
$600
This component of GDP includes spending by businesses on things like machinery, buildings, and inventories.
What is investment?
$800
This measure divides real GDP by the population to approximate average economic well-being per person.
What is GDP per capita?
$1,000
This pattern of alternating expansion and contraction in economic activity defines this recurring cycle.
What is the business cycle?

Unemployment and Inflation

$200
This type of unemployment results from the normal, short-term process of workers searching for or transitioning between jobs.
What is frictional unemployment?
$400
This type of unemployment arises when workers' skills no longer match the jobs available, often due to technological change.
What is structural unemployment?
$600
This sustained rise in the general price level reduces the purchasing power of money over time.
What is inflation?
$800
This index tracks the average price of a fixed basket of consumer goods and services over time.
What is the Consumer Price Index?
$1,000
This economic condition combines stagnant growth, high unemployment, and high inflation all at once.
What is stagflation?

Fiscal Policy

$200
This branch of policy uses government spending and taxation to influence the overall economy.
What is fiscal policy?
$400
This situation occurs when government spending in a given year exceeds government revenue.
What is a budget deficit?
$600
This total amount a government owes, accumulated from years of budget deficits, describes its accumulated obligations.
What is the national debt?
$800
This effect describes how an initial change in spending leads to a larger overall change in total economic output.
What is the spending multiplier?
$1,000
This type of fiscal policy, such as unemployment insurance, automatically expands or contracts without new legislation as the economy changes.
What is an automatic stabilizer?

Money and Central Banking

$200
This institution serves as the central bank of the United States.
What is the Federal Reserve?
$400
This tool of monetary policy involves the central bank buying or selling government securities to influence the money supply.
What are open market operations?
$600
This interest rate is charged on overnight loans between banks holding funds at the Federal Reserve.
What is the federal funds rate?
$800
This fraction of deposits that banks must hold in reserve rather than lend out is set by the central bank.
What is the reserve requirement?
$1,000
This type of monetary policy increases the money supply and lowers interest rates to stimulate a sluggish economy.
What is expansionary monetary policy?

International Trade

$200
This principle holds that countries gain by specializing in producing goods for which they have a lower opportunity cost.
What is comparative advantage?
$400
This tax imposed on imported goods raises their price and can protect domestic industries.
What is a tariff?
$600
This numerical limit on the quantity of a good that may be imported during a given period restricts trade more directly than a tariff.
What is a quota?
$800
This account records the difference between a country's exports and imports of goods and services.
What is the balance of trade?
$1,000
This value expresses how much one country's currency is worth in terms of another country's currency.
What is the exchange rate?

Final Jeopardy — History of Economic Thought

In a 1776 book on the wealth of nations, this Scottish thinker argued that self-interested buyers and sellers are guided as if by an invisible hand.

Who is Adam Smith?

How to run this board

Whether the course is AP Macro or a college principles section, the skeleton is the same, and this board follows it: basic concepts, GDP and growth, unemployment and inflation, fiscal policy, money and central banking, and international trade.

A good format is three rounds of two categories each, with teams rotating who holds the buzzer phone. The projector shows the board; the host reads and rules on answers.

One tip: for every policy question, make teams state the direction of the effect. Knowing the Fed buys bonds is worthless without knowing which way rates move.

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