This lesson plan helps students understand the role consumer demand plays in the market system, i.e., how interactions in the marketplace help determine pricing. Students will participate in an activity that demonstrates the concepts of demand, demand schedule, demand curve, and the law of demand. The lesson plan provides student objectives;…

Argues that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is not the same as the cost of living and that, while the CPI may reflect changes in an "average" family's purchasing power, the expenses and purchases of teachers' families may not be "average." (Author/RW)

Discusses six propositions concerning higher education contradicting prevailing pricing wisdom: high demand rarely drives prices up; market share increases rarely drive prices down; competition drives prices up; tuition prices are only loosely tied to delivery costs; student tuition is only loosely tied to price; and high tuition prices do not…

Consumer demand and advances in technology are generating increases in the availability of brand name compact disc (CD) recorders priced for average consumers. A comparative analysis of CD-recorders is presented based on functions, capabilities, cost, and marketability. Related issues are also discussed, including computer software; technical…

Observes that, before 1973, determining a valuation formula for option prices was an elusive goal of financial economics. Discusses Louis Bachelier's early twentieth-century work on the problem. Notes that Bachelier derived a normal distribution for stock price movements by modeling price changes in specific way. Reviews Bachelier's option pricing…

Presents a method of using the Consumer Price Index to give students an understanding of the meanings of price levels in different historical periods. Demonstrates how to figure the actual price of items in the 1920s and 1930s by converting prices to present value. Argues that consumer goods were not cheaper in the past. (DK)

Describes various inflationary measures, price indexes, and price deflators. Highlights include Bureau of Labor Statistics price indexes, including the Consumer Price Index and the Producer Price Index; Bureau of Economic Analysis price deflators; the Cost of Living Index; and a comparison of measures of inflation. (27 references) (LRW)

Strategic pricing is an important and exciting topic in industrial organization and the economics of strategy. A wide range of texts use what has become a standard version of the Milgrom and Roberts (1982a) limit-pricing model to convey the essential ideas of strategic pricing under incomplete information. In addition to providing a formal, but…

Between 1986 and 2004, textbook prices rose 186 percent in the United States, or slightly more than six percent per year. Meanwhile, other prices rose only about three percent per year. This paper examines the economic reasons why textbook prices have escalated so briskly and what reasonable alternatives are available that might slow down these…

This article, based on the Periodicals Prices Survey of 2006, evaluates the changing trends of electronic periodical marketplace in 2006 and indicates what to expect in 2007. The 2005-2006 academic year was one of competing realities: the buying and selling of electronic journals continued apace, while the posting and crawling of every kind of…

While the current inflation problems are neither totally new nor unique, economic history shows that neither are these problems necessary nor inevitable. (Author)

The purpose of this study was to explore alternative methods for saving public funds in the purchasing of school bus bodies in the state of Georgia. Officials from each of the 50 states responded to a questionnaire that solicited descriptions of the methods used by state officials in purchasing school bus bodies. The discussion focuses on (1) the…

The report, an adaptation and condensation of the European Economic Community Commission's report, discusses the findings of linking wages to cost-of-living indexes in eight of its member countries (Denmark, Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom). (Author/BP)

In assessing educational equity among school districts, according to the authors, researchers should control for differences across districts in the prices of educational inputs. This paper tests a suggested index for one educational input, teacher salaries. The suggested teacher-salary index, based on a supply-and-demand model using 12 demand and…

Encompassing the years between 1969 and 1979, this study of 18 standard metropolitan statistical areas (SMSAs) attempted to determine if changes in selected economic indicators were correlated with changes in teacher salaries. Researchers looked at changes in consumer price indices, per capita personal income, and average beginning teachers'…