Economics Demo Day Project Ideas

Here is a list of project ideas related to a few most important principles of economics.

Principle #1: Incentives matters

• How do you incentivize your students to be more engaged in your class?

• How should WEquil School incentivize students to create more projects?

Principle #2: Because of scarcity of time and resources, we constantly face trade-offs. Opportunity cost is the cost of any option you have to give up in order to pursue your opportunity.

• How do you spend your limited time or attention? Social media are designed to capture as much of your attention as possible, how should you best use social media? What else could you use your time and attention for?

• You may have many ideas for Minimum Viable Projects (MVPs) but you have limited time. How do you prioritize which project to work on?

• Another related concept is sunk cost. When should you give up on a project?

Principle #3: Market, the invisible hand, adjusts price to balance supply and demand. If prices are too low, more demand than supply. If prices are too high, more supply than demand.

• When you start your business to sell a product or service, for example, teaching a class, how would you price it, so you don’t get too many or too few students?

Principle #4: When market prices fail to take into account externalities, government policy can improve outcomes. Externality means that your action would affect someone else positively or negatively. Government policies can set incentives so positive or negative externalities can be priced into products or services.

• Why is there a speed limit? What would happen if there is no speed limit?

• Why is public school free?

• The Chinese government forbids kids to play video games more than 3 hours per week. What do you think of this policy?