Teaching How Markets Work Using the Economics of The Office Website

This paper describes a series of assignments that can be used in conjunction with the Economics of The Office website to help students identify the equilibrium price and quantity sold of a good in a market, differentiate between a shift in the demand curve and a movement along the demand curve, understand elasticity of demand and supply, comprehend willingness to pay and willingness to sell, and make subjective valuations. We augment videos from The Office with group work to encourage students to draw supply and demand curves and explain if there is a nonequilibrium price in a market or a shift in the demand function. These activities strengthen core knowledge of how markets work to help students intuitively grasp economics as a whole.