Shared Resources

Model Visualization Exercises for Intermediate Micro

Example of exercise

Much research has shown that novices and experts across the STEM disciplines differ markedly in how they approach and solve problems. Many STEM education scholars find that giving students scaffolded exercises in which they work with a visualization tool can be highly effective in teaching novices to think more like experts.

Through our Model Visualization Project we have used EconGraphs.org to develop several of these exercises for use in intermediate microeconomics courses. All of them have been fielded with hundreds of real students.

Each of the below links leads to a webpage containing the exercise that can be shared with students. Students work with the interactives embedded in the web page, but they compose their answers with pencil and paper. Instructors can email Doug McKee for detailed solutions.

Lagrangian
Students start by solving a simple utility maximization problem using a Lagrangian, and then, using an interactive visualization, they see how changes in income and prices affect optimal consumer behavior.
Preferences and Transformation
Students use a visualization to explore the properties of the Cobb-Douglas utility function.
Changing Hearts and Minds
Students work with different utility functions to see how their parameters affect their shapes and in turn how they model consumer preferences.
Substitution and Income Effects
Students separately use visualization and the Slutsky equation to decompose the total effect of a price change into a substitution effect and an income effect.
Kit Kats and Oreos
Students visually derive solutions to a consumer's utility maximization and expenditure minimization problems and discover that they are the same.
Compensating Variation
Students use a visualization to get an intuitive understanding of compensating variation (CV) and equivalent variation (EV) before calculating them algebraically.
Tax and Compensation
Students work with a visualization to see the impact of per-unit taxes and income subsidies on consumer demand.
Marginal Products and Returns to Scale
Students use 2D and 3D visualizations to derive properties of a production function.
Cost Minimization
Students solve a firm's cost minimization problem visually to build intuition, and then algebraically. They also use the interactive graph to see how a change in the firm's marginal product of labor affects their optimal choice.
Aggregating Supply and Demand
Students use a visualization to see how several producers and consumers can be aggregated into market supply and market demand.
Edgeworth Box and Contract Curve
Students start with a bare Edgeworth Box and gradually add components until they can use it to identify an equilibrium allocation given endowments.
Monopoly
Students use a visualization to see how a monopolist makes different choices from a perfect competitor to make higher profits.
Cournot Duopoly
Students work with a visual model of a market with two firms to see exactly how their behavior converges to a Cournot equilibrium.
Externality (One Firm)
Students use visualizations of total and average revenue curves to determine under a variety of conditions including externalities.
Risk Premia and Certainty Equivalents
Students use a visualization to gain a deep understanding of expected utility, expected outcomes, certainty equivalents, and risk premia.