Ron is sad that JJ’s diner is closing even though it is a sign that he is a failure as a businessman, or the market has determined he is not adding enough value.
See more: competition, free entry and exit, invisible hand, profit maximization
As the prices of real estate in Pawnee rises, it induces the Newport family to sell some of the land that they own. This clip can be used to illustrate the law of supply and the role if incentives.
See more: incentives, reservation price, supply, supply shifts
Ron’s chair becomes popular after being featured in Bloosh, and Annabelle wants to talk about licensing his designs and scaling up production. Instead of having each handmade by Ron Swanson, they can be mass-produced by foreign labor.
See more: demand shifts, economies of scale, luxury goods, outsourcing, preferences, product differentiation, subjective value
Tom fancies himself an entrepreneur and lists off a variety of different business ideas he has. Throughout the series, Tom comes up with different business ideas, but this is just a subset of his ideas that he names during the premier of his alcoholic beverage, Snake Juice. Most of his ideas though are really just variances of other products so Tom is focusing on differentiating the businesses to serve niche markets.
See more: barriers to entry, entrepreneurship, innovation, product differentiation
Donna and Tom take Ben on a “Treat Yo Self” day to help him relax, but he just buys socks, which he feels like he needs. Donna and Tom challenge him to think about what he would buy for himself if he could get anything he wanted. Ben decides he wants a Batman costume.
See more: elasticity, income effect, income elastic, luxury goods, necessities, normal goods, preferences, subjective value, utility
Ron teaches his young basketball players that capitalism is God’s way of determining who is smart and who is poor. In the long run of a perfectly competitive market, the worst performers should be pushed out of the market.
See more: capitalism, comparative systems, globalization, government programs, government spending, inequality, normative statements, taxes
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
Economics of Parks & Recreation 