While on suspension, Leslie buys her officemates Christmas gifts based on their personalities. Ron mentions how he only gives people $20, but realizes how great Leslie’s gifts are and how the office needs to remedy the gift giving imbalance. While Ron takes the most efficient outcome for gift giving, he’s realizing that there may need to be a bit more thought put into the process.
See more: behavioral, equity, gift giving, preferences, utility
The city is finally removing an old payphone and has decided to complete Indiana’s tiniest park. Leslie believes this investment will attract 5000 visitors to the city who would want to see the “Smallest Park in Indiana.”’
See more: common resources, government spending, growth, investment, technology
Leslie and Ben are holding a town forum for Indiana’s Smallest Park, but a town citizen brings up that she’s concerned about whether basketball will be played at this park because it brings undesirables to the park. Leslie then demonstrates all the possible problems that could come from this park, including grilling and fireworks.
See more: club goods, common resources, externalities, public goods, types of goods
Andy has decided to take a class at the local community college and April is helping him look through the catalog. Ron encourages him to take a course in a new subject and broaden his horizons, but April thinks he should take an easy class to get an A.
See more: education, effort minimization, human capital, incentives, labor, signalling, skill building
Andy is ready to register for his first college course, but is shocked by the cost of one class. He then decides to pick up a second job before Ron offers to pay for his class.
See more: cost of college, education, human capital
The Reasonablists are having their end-of-life party in the local park and Ron sees an opportunity to sell his high quality wooden flutes. Because the party springs up without notice, Ron sees a sudden spike in demand for his flutes. The leader of the Reasonabilists offers Ron a check because they don’t believe it will have any value the next day, but Ron has been selling them flutes for each of their previous going away parties.
See more: demand, demand shifts, elasticity, expectations, inelastic, M2, markets, medium of exchange, money, normal goods, preferences, store of value, transactions, unit of account
Andy and April are throwing a Halloween party at their house and start listing off all the things they need to throw a great party. The output is a great party and the inputs are a variety of different items.
See more: complements, inputs, outputs, preferences, production function, utility
Ann runs into Donna at a single’s event but is quickly sent away because she represents competition in “the jungle.” Dating markets work best whenever they are “thick,” but if there aren’t many available mates then it can be hard to match up.
See more: behavioral, common resources, competition, coordiantion problem, dating markets, game theory, zero-sum game
The pollution from the local factory creates a beautiful sunset, but it also gives people asthma. Ben and Leslie debate whether the beauty of the sunset is worth the tradeoff. Reducing pollution to zero would be extremely expensive, so it’s important to find some optimal level of pollution.
See more: externalities, negative externalities, positive externalities, private benefits, private costs, social benefits, social costs, social incentives, tradeoffs
Ron finds a typewriter out by the dumpster, but the noise of the machine bothers everyone in the office. While it makes him happy, he’s not taking into consideration the costs he is imposing on everyone else.
See more: externalities, private benefits, private costs, social benefits, social costs
Economics of Parks & Recreation 