Econ Lowdown Podcast Series

Business Cycle

This audio assignment describes how the economy moves through phases of the business cycle how the Federal Reserve System smoothes some of the ride's bumps.

Costs of Production

This audio assignment describes how businesses consider costs when making decisions – including about whether to shut down.

Demand

This audio assignment examines the law of demand, the demand curve, and factors that affect demand.

Economic Growth

This audio assignment explores economic growth—how technological progress can organize the factors of production to be more productive.

Elasticity of Demand

This audio assignment introduces the concept of elasticity and how economists use it to describe consumer behavior.

Externalities

In this audio assignment, students learn about the spillover effect and are introduced to the concepts of negative and positive externalities.

Factors of Production

This audio assignment discusses the building blocks of the economy, the four factors of production: land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship.

Fiscal Policy

This audio assignment covers how the government uses fiscal policy to influence the economy.

Functions of Money

This audio assignment covers the functions of money and the differences between commodity, representative, and fiat money.

Getting Real about Interest Rates

This audio assignment explains how inflation influences the real return on your deposits, how it impacts borrowers and lenders, and why price stability is important.

Gross Domestic Product

This audio assignment explains what GDP is, how it is calculated, and how it can be used as a way to measure standard of living.

Inflation

This audio assignment discusses three aspects of inflation: what it is, what causes it and how it is measured.

Labor Market

This audio assignment explains the basics of the labor market through the story of young people looking for their first job.

Market Equilibrium

This audio assignment explores how supply and demand work together to determine the market equilibrium - and the prices of the things you buy.

Monetary Policy

This audio assignment discusses how the Federal Reserve uses monetary policy to influence the economy.

Opportunity Cost

This audio assignment introduces three topics in economics: choice, scarcity and opportunity cost.

Price Signals

This audio assignment covers how price signals from gas prices influence decision-making for both a father and a production supervisor for an oil refinery.

Public Goods

This audio assignment defines the characteristics of private and public goods and explains why these characteristics help determine who is best positioned to produce.

Supply

This audio assignment discusses the supply side of the market. Use this lesson to introduce your students to the law of supply.

The Role of Self Interest in a Market Economy

This audio assignment explains self-interest and competition in a market economy and their importance to our understanding of the economic system.

Unemployment

This audio assignment covers the basics of unemployment—how it is defined, how it is measured, and how it is categorized into three types.