A successful businessman is convinced his wealth is the source of his son's illness so he decides to give away all of his money.
DVD Location: Season 6, "Instant Karma", episode 4 31:49-33:35
Opportunity cost; comparative advantage; consumer surplus: While unclogging the sink, the father realizes he is late for a meeting. His son volunteers (for $50) to fix the sink rather than his father hiring a plumber. The father agrees and he admits he would have paid more.
DVD Location: Season 1, "Mascot Love", 3:13-4:29
Gains from exchange: Christina decides to get rid of her wedding gifts (for her wedding that was canceled) by trading them for favors.
DVD Location: Season 4, "Love/Addiction", 4:05-5:04
The nurses in Seattle Grace Hospital go on strike.
DVD Location: Season 2, "Tell Me Sweet Lies", episode 14.
Choices; trade-offs: A serious train accident leaves the doctors having to choose between two patients. If they save one, the other will die.
DVD Location: Season 2, "Into You Like a Train", 6:40-8:20 and 14:08-15:41
Trade-offs; opportunity costs: A man discovers he has a brain tumor. Surgery is available, but only at the great risk of the patient losing his memories and personality. However, without the surgery, the patient will not have very long to live.
DVD Location: Season 1, "No Man's Land", 22:36-24:00 and 26:57-27:34 and 29:57-31:27
Cost-benefit analysis; profit and loss: Lisa decides to create a vegetable garden to make Oliver happy, but her spending on the garden creates a problem for Oliver.
DVD Location: Season 2, "Lisa's Vegetable Garden", 3:34-5:09, 11:50-12:33, 12:41-13:15, 19:20-23:07, 23:46-24:08
Overuse of common resources: The Douglas household loses water after Mr. Haney drills a new well. They also decide to drill a new well, impacting their own neighbors.
DVD Location: Season 2, "Water, Water Everywhere", 1:30-5:15 and 9:32-11:05
Diminishing marginal utility of income: Mom (a wealthy character) blows her nose with a $300 bill while Klompers looks on (saddened).
DVD Location: Season 4, "Three Hundred Big Boys", 20:40-21:09
Inflation, money supply: The government gives all citizens $300. Prices immediately rise.
DVD Location: Season 4, "Three Hundred Big Boys", 0:30-2:04 (shortens to 0:30-1:15) and 2:34-2:38
Effect of government subsidies; incentives: Bender decides to adopt ten kids to get the subsidy from the government.
DVD Location: Season 3, "The Cyber House Rules", 9:20-10:03 and 11:14-11:45 and 15:21-17:03
Law of supply: the price of titanium rises, so Bender is willing to sell his body.
DVD Location: Season 2, "A Head in the Polls", 5:45-6:53
Externalities; discounting the future: Earthlings used to send their garbage up in space to get rid of it, now there is a threat of it coming back.
DVD Location: Season 1, 8:34-11:00
Compound interest: Fry discovers that his bank account interest (for over 1,000 years) has made him a billionaire.
DVD Location: Season 1, 5:55-6:43
Inelastic demand; addiction: Fry continues to drink Slurm soda even after he knows that it is made from worm excrement.
DVD Location: Season 1, "Fry and the Slurm Factory", 13:59-14:55
Common resource problem and overconsumption: Monica decides to make home-made candy and leave it by her door in order to make friends. Her "neighbors" eventually begin treating the candy as a common-pool resource good and overconsumption occurs.
DVD Location: Season 7, episode 9, 02:01:02:41, 04:37-05:19, 10:48-11:47 and 19:24-20:49
Effect of insurance on consumption of medical care; discount rate: Joey has a hernia, but won't get treated until he has an acting job so he can have insurance from his union.
DVD Location: Season 6, "The One Where Joey Loses His Health Insurance"
Division of Labor: Monica caters a funeral and Phoebe procures payment from the widow.
DVD Location: Season 4, episode 6, "The One with the Dirty Girl", 17:13-18:09
Diminishing marginal utility, marginal benefit vs. marginal cost: One day Joey and Chandler find a free porn station on their cable television. The building superintendent tells them that when this happened to him he turned off the TV and the porn was gone. So the guys decide to leave the TV on the channel 24/7 just to be safe. Throughout the episode the porn channel is in the background. Finally, at the end of the episode the guys grow tired of the porn and they decide to turn it off.
DVD Location: Season 4, episode 3, "The One with the Free Porno", 0:22-1:22 and 22:30-23:30.
Rent Control: Monica explains to Joey that she acquired the apartment when her grandmother moved to Florida. "If anyone asks, I am an 87 year old woman who is afraid of her VCR."
DVD Location: Season 3, "The One with the Flashback", 12:12-13:10
Opportunity Cost: Ross chooses between Rachel and Julie, describing the pros and cons of each choice.
DVD Location: Season 2, "The One with the List", 7:40-10:00
The community raises money for Paul Lewis to afford a lung transplant.
DVD Location: Season 3, episode 15.
The factors of production: The Winslows produce Lemon Tarts, illustrating each of the major factors of production.
DVD Location: Season 1, Episode 14
Opportunity cost: After hearing a time share pitch, Peter must choose between a new boat and a mystery box as his gift. He chooses wrong.
DVD Location: Season 2, episode 8. 03:12-04:17
Income/Wealth as a demand shifter: The family become wealthier at the death of an aunt.
DVD Location: Season 2, Episode 1: 4:26-17:28
Shifts in demand, normal vs. inferior goods: Peter loses his job, goes on welfare, and due to an accounting glitch receives $150,000 a week.
DVD Location: Season 1, episode 1, 11:30-15:25
Substitutes, generics, food stamps: The family goes to the grocery and uses the food stamps that they obtained to buy many generic brands in order to save money.
DVD Location: Season 1, episode 9
Inelastic demand, income elasticity, and luxury goods: Johnny Chase decides to get calf implants.
DVD Location: Season 2, episode 4, "An Offer Refused", 6:20-7:30
Incentives, personal finance: Cliff is upset that his son doesn't want to go to college. He uses monopoly money to show him how life's expenses add up. The last scene shows Cliff threatening his son, providing him an incentive to do as his father tells him.
DVD Location: Season 1; 9:12-12:17 and 16:42-18:14
Discouraged worker effect
Location: 3/17/2008; available on Colbert Report website
**Contributed by Dan Kuester, Kansas State University
Externalities of cashmere farming
Location: 7/30/2007; available on Colbert Report website
Incentives
Location: 21/1/2008; available on Colbert Report website
Changes in the price of a substitute
Location: 1/31/2008; available on Colbert Report website
Denise's fiance needs a lung transplant; he arranges to pay for the college education of a man who is dying of an inoperable brain tumor; that man just happens to be willing to donate a lung to Post.
DVD Location: Season 3
A local government wants to outlaw the sale of red meat because of health concerns.
DVD Location: Season 1