Slideshow Archive

The following slideshows are for your use in teaching or studying economics. Cut-and-paste them into your lectures or assign them as readings. The slideshows are provided under Creative Commons License  Attribution—Share Alike 3.0 . You are free to use them in your class regardless of the textbook you are using, but if you like the slides, you may also want to take a look at my textbook, Introduction to Economics, from BVT Publishing.

New: A Social Safety Net for the Pandemic and Beyond How has America's social safety net performed during the COVID pandemic, and how can it be improved to meet the next crisis?
New: Coronavirus and the Economy: A Tutorial Explores the supply- and demand-side impacts of the pandemic.
New: Is the Federal Budget Out of Control? A Tutorial on Debt Dynamics and Sustainability This newly revised slideshow is perfect for explaining how recent coronavirus legislation will affec the debt and deficit going forward.

Case Studies in Supply and Demand

The slideshows in this series cover a variety of topics, including shifts in supply and demand curves vs. movements along the curves, long- vs. short-run supply and demand, and elasticity. They can be used as demonstrations in your lectures, as in-class quizzes, as problems for discussion sections, or as independent reading. All of them were topical at the time they were written, but as study cases, the old ones work just as well as the newer ones.

• Producer and Consumer Surplus: A Tutorial This slideshow uses supply and demand curves to explain the basics of consumer and producer surplus.
• TheEconomics of a Soda Tax Berkeley, CA recently became the first city in the country to pass a soda tax, bringing new topicality to this way of raising revenue. This slideshow, originally posted in 2010, has been updated as of 2015.
• The Looming Blood Surplus  Uses supply and demand curves to explain why shortages of blood for transfusions are becoming a thing of the past.
• The Economics of Legal Marijuana Markets Applies concepts of supply, demand, and elasticity to explain the startup problems of Washington State's market for legal marijuana
• Cows, Bees, and Nuts: Why is the Price of Almonds Soaring? This slideshow looks at the growth of demand for almond milk and other almond products, together with pollination problems arising from bee colony collapse disorder, as factors causing a sharp increase in the price of almonds.
• Does Peak Phosphate Spell Doom for Humanity, or Will Supply and Demand Save Us? Uses supply and demand curves to interpret the controversy over the effects of declining supplies and rising prices of phosphate fertilizers.
• Why Olive Oil, Good for the Body, is Hard on the Budget Uses supply and demand curves to explain the spike in olive oil prices in early 2013. 
• Will Fracking Enrich India’s Guar Farmers? Or America’s? This slideshow focuses on the use of guar as an additive in fracking, with a focus on the supply and demand for guar. If you want to undertake a broader discussion of fracking, use this slideshow together with the blog post  Fracking and the Environment: An Economic Perspective.
• Econ 101, Hayek, and why we are Losing the War on Drugs. This slideshow focuses on the importance of elastic vs. inelastic demand in determining the unintended consequences of drug prohibition.
• Move Over Ethanol, Market Forces Favor CNG as a Gasoline Replacement. This slideshow uses the market for compressed natural gas as a motor fuel to illustrate long-run vs. short-run supply and demand. You will find more recent information on CNG in the related blog post What is Holding Back Natural Gas as the Transportation Fuel of the Future?
• China’s Fragile Rare Earth Monopoly  Uses the concepts of short-run vs. long-run elasticities to explain how China attained its near-monopoly on rare earth elements, and why market forces are breaking it down
• ChocolateLovers Keep a Nervous Eye on Volatile Cocoa Prices Originally written to explain a run-up in cocoa prices in 2010 and revised in 2014, this classic has become the most viewed of all my supply-and-demand slideshows
• Electric Rates and Conservation: A Natural Experiment  The “natural experiment” here is the quirky situation in New York City, where electricity is metered in some apartments and not metered in others. The differing opportunity cost for electricity is used to illustrate the concept of elasticity of demand.
• The Afghan Opium Blight: The Strategic Implications of Elasticity In 2010, a blight sharply reduced the Afghan opium harvest. This slideshow uses the concept of elasticity of demand to illustrate some of the unintended consequences of US policy toward opium growing in that country.

Fiscal Policy and Taxes 

• Is the US Government Debt Really Out of Control? This slideshow explains the simple arithmetic of debt dynamics. Currently, the US federal debt is not on an unsustainable path.
• The economics of a Price-Smoothing Oil Tax Examines the idea of an oil tax that increases when world prices are low and decreases when they are high
• Who Really Pays Taxes? The Question of Tax Incidence Uses concepts of supply, demand, and elasticity to present the basic theory of tax incidence
• Why Hasn't the US become another Greece? A Comparison of Two Budget Crises. This slideshow compares the budget crises in Greece and the United States, with emphasis on the procyclical nature of fiscal policy in both countries.
• How do we Know if the Federal Debt is Sustainable? Covers structural primary balance and debt dynamics. This slideshow can be used in conjunction with the blog post How Can We Tell if Fiscal Policy is Sustainable? Three Views.
• The Truth about Taxes: What are our Choices? These slides were originally prepared for a presentation to a local chapter of the League of Women Voters. They focus on the issue of changes in tax rates vs. broader tax reform that broadens the tax base.
• The Case against the Mortgage Interest Deduction
• A Policy Dilemma: Budget Deficit vs. Infrastructure Deficit

Banking and Monetary Policy

• Quantitative Easing and the Fed 2008-2014: A Tutorial  Explains the mechanics of quantitative easing an assesses the effectiveness of the Fed's QE policies in the aftermath of the Great Recession
• Do Banks take Excessive Risks? Examines contagion effects, moral hazard, and agency problems as potential sources of excessive risk taking by banks.
• Tutorial on Bank Failures and Bank Rescues. Defines the terms and illustrates the concepts needed to understand banking crisis like Cyprus, Ireland, Iceland, etc.
• What is Basel III and Why Should we Regulate Bank Capital? Explains the importance of the Basel III rules and uses simple balance sheets to illustrate the importance of regulating bank capital. Updated in March 2013, this classic has been the most viewed of all my slideshows.
• More on Basel III: Regulating Bank Liquidity A companion to the preceding slideshow, also updated in March 2013
• Could QE3 Cause the Fed to Go Broke?
• Estonia Joins the Euro: What can we Learn?

Growth, inflation, and other macro issues

• What is the Nairu and Why Does It Matter? Explains the meaning of the non-accelerating-inflation rate of unemployment (aka natural rate of unemployment) and the role in plays in the formulation of monetary policy.
• What Ever Happened to the Misery Index? Arthur Okun's original misery index was the sum of inflation and unemployment. This slideshow looks at the index over half a century and compares it with modern variants
• Why Fear Deflation? A Tutorial Deflation is one of the most feared economic maladies of our time. This slideshow explores good and bad reasons to fear deflation, and explains why deflation can sometimes (although not often) be good
• When Will the Economy Recover? What is "Recovery", Anyway? The term "recovery" is used loosely by economic journalists. This post explains and compares different meanings.
•  Whatever Happened to the Phillips Curve? An Interpretation of Fifty Years of Inflation and Unemployment Data The Phillips curve trace the relationship between inflation and unemployment. This sideshow discusses the reasons that the Phillips curve relationship is not so visible in the US economy in recent years
• The Curse of Riches: Resource Wealth and Social Progress  The "curse of riches" refers to the fact that resource-rich countries often do not prosper. This post explains why.

International issues

• Why Does Anyone Think America Should Be More Like Europe? Some Reasons.  European countries outperform the United States according to many indicators of human welfare and social progress.
• Free trade under fire  Explains why so many politicians attacked free trade during the 2016 US election campaign. Discusses both invalid and valid (or partially valid) arguments against free trade.
• Real and nominal exchange rates: A tutorial 
• Breakup of the Ruble Area (1991-1993): A Cautionary Tale for the Euro
• Estonia Joins the Euro: What can we Learn? 
• China's Fragile Rare Earth Monopoly
• How Successful is China's Currency Manipulation?

Other micro

• How Liberals and Conservatives Can Have a Constructive Dialog about Climate Change.  There is more common ground between liberals and conservatives than many people think. This slideshow explains how to navigate the political divide over climate change.
• The opportunity Cost of Driving Your Car has Never Been Lower Charts the cost of driving your car by the metric of the miles you can drive your car on the fuel you can purchase with an hour's wages
• What can the US Learn from Other Countries’ Healthcare Systems?   First in a series of three slideshows comparing US and European healthcare systems.
• What can the US Learn from the French Healthcare System?
• What can the US Learn from the German Healthcare System?