When you know your economy

The social foundation offers ample possibilities to connect financial and economic literacy, like health, education, food, water, energy and housing. These elements correspond with economic sectors in which students engage now, and will engage more when they take the next step in their lives and have responsibility for their own household budget. That is how we came up with the idea of a series of lessons called ‘Know Your Economy’.

Replanting a Forest

Recently, I had an interesting discussion with a teacher in higher education. He had a classroom discussion about deforestation and his students were rather blasé about the topic. Their standpoint was that if you cut down a tree, you simply replant it elsewhere, so what is the problem. I mean, you can compensate your aviation kilometers too by planting trees, or not?

Embed the Economy

Two weeks ago I was fortunate to participate in the first game design session of a game based on Doughnut Economics, that has the working title Seeds. The design of the game is now in full swing. Last week I told you I wanted to share a few things about the project, and I shared some Monopoly alternatives with you. Today, I want to go deeper into the question that underlies Seeds.

Board games

Last week I was fortunate to participate in the first game design session of a game based on Doughnut Economics, that has the working title Seeds. There are a few things I want to share with you about this project. Today I want to share some board game ideas I picked up in the meeting.

How to describe an industry

Recently I caught myself describing an industry in the old fashioned way. I focussed on the number of people employed in the industry, its contribution to GDP, and, in order to typify the market structure, I tried to find the most up to date information on market shares and company size.
But then it hit me: I was doing what I have always done, whereas we now need a different perspective on industries: a doughnut perspective.

The Concept of Value

One of the things we have discussed over the last few months is the concept of value. The question ‘what is value’ is such a philosophical question. It is often assumed that economists believe price to be equal to value, but if that was so, why would we have the concept of willingness to pay?

Do We Need Pandas?

Today a shorter post than I normally write. This is due to my work on a series of posts on a specific industry, which I want to kick off with a post on how to describe an industry. I am not satisfied with the result yet, so you have to wait a little longer for that post. There has been a book I wanted to write about for quite some time now, so I use this opportunity to do just that.