Supply and Demand Jeopardy

Scarcity, supply, demand, and equilibrium on a free economics board for high school. Copy it for class, project it, and have students buzz in on phones.

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

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Every clue on this board

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Scarcity and Choice

$200
Every choice involves this, giving up some of one thing to get more of another.
What is a trade-off?
$400
The value of the next best alternative you give up when you make a choice is called this.
What is opportunity cost?
$600
Economists group land, labor, capital and entrepreneurship together under this name.
What are the factors of production?
$800
This graph shows the maximum combinations of two goods an economy can make with its resources.
What is the production possibilities curve?
$1,000
Deciding by comparing the extra benefit and extra cost of one more unit is called this kind of analysis.
What is marginal analysis?

The Law of Demand

$200
On a standard graph, the demand curve slopes in this direction.
What is downward?
$400
A change in a good's own price causes a movement along the demand curve, called a change in this.
What is quantity demanded?
$600
When the price of a good rises and shoppers switch to cheaper alternatives, this effect is at work.
What is the substitution effect?
$800
When a price drop makes buyers' money go further so they buy more, this effect is at work.
What is the income effect?
$1,000
This principle says each additional unit of a good brings less satisfaction than the one before it.
What is diminishing marginal utility?

The Law of Supply

$200
On a standard graph, the supply curve slopes in this direction.
What is upward?
$400
Producers offer more at higher prices because higher prices raise their chance of earning this.
What is profit?
$600
A change in a good's own price causes a movement along the supply curve, called a change in this.
What is quantity supplied?
$800
This measure shows how strongly the quantity producers offer responds to a change in price.
What is price elasticity of supply?
$1,000
Adding more and more workers to a fixed factory eventually adds less output per worker, a principle called this.
What is the law of diminishing returns?

Shifting the Curves

$200
A good whose demand rises when consumers' incomes rise is called this.
What is a normal good?
$400
Demand for this kind of good, such as generic store brands, tends to fall when incomes rise.
What is an inferior good?
$600
When the price of coffee rises and demand for tea rises too, the two goods are these.
What are substitutes?
$800
When the price of printers falls and demand for ink rises, the two goods are these.
What are complements?
$1,000
A new technology that lowers production costs shifts the supply curve in this direction.
What is to the right?

Equilibrium and Prices

$200
When quantity supplied is greater than quantity demanded at the going price, this results.
What is a surplus?
$400
When quantity demanded is greater than quantity supplied at the going price, this results.
What is a shortage?
$600
A legal maximum price, such as rent control, is called this.
What is a price ceiling?
$800
A legal minimum price, such as the minimum wage, is called this.
What is a price floor?
$1,000
The difference between the most buyers are willing to pay and the price they actually pay is called this.
What is consumer surplus?

Market Structures

$200
A market with only one seller of a product that has no close substitutes is this.
What is a monopoly?
$400
A market dominated by a few large firms, such as airlines, is this.
What is an oligopoly?
$600
In this market structure, many firms sell identical products and no single firm can influence the price.
What is perfect competition?
$800
Many firms selling similar but slightly different products, such as restaurants, describes this structure.
What is monopolistic competition?
$1,000
A group of producers who agree to fix prices and limit output, such as OPEC, is this.
What is a cartel?

Final Jeopardy — Economic Laws

When the price of a good rises and the quantity people are willing to buy falls, all else being equal, this economic principle is at work.

What is the law of demand?

How to run this board

This board covers the opening units of most high-school economics courses: scarcity and opportunity cost, the laws of supply and demand, what shifts each curve, equilibrium price and quantity, price ceilings and floors, and the basic market structures.

Curve-shift questions are easy to misread aloud, so sketch a blank supply-and-demand graph on the board and have the answering team point to the shift before you accept the answer. It catches the students who memorized the word but not the picture.

Final Jeopardy is also a small lesson in marginal thinking - ask each team to justify its wager before revealing the clue.

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