Economic Board Game: Monopoly and Real-Life Economics
You will hold an auction on every purchased property.
You must keep a balance sheet of all your transactions.
Response Question:
1. Explain how the monopoly game with the rules we followed was a great example on how our economy works. Make sure you include inflation, supply and demand, bailouts, and good/bad economic decisions.
2. Tell us about your best and worst investments.
3. Than explain what you would have done differently if you were to play again.
Riceville High School 
I think it’s a good example because it shows how you can make good buys and bad buys. The auctioning off of the properties showed the supply and demand. At first, properties weren’t very expensive. Once people started to want properties in all of one color, they were pushed to see how far and how much they would spend on a property they wanted. Based on how much they bought the property for, they could either loose money because no one lands on it, or they can make money because everyone lands on it. There are many good and bad economic decisions. You could make the good decision on buying a property that has high rent and people land on it or buying every property of that color and getting twice the rent. Buying houses could be a possible good decision. You could buy them and people could keep landing on them or you could buy them and people don’t land on them and you could loose money. You could buy a property for a high price but has low rent and you also have the possibility of people not even landing on that space. My best investments were definitely owning all of the railroads. I ended up buying all of them for pretty much really cheap. Once I owned all four, then I made a lot more money.
I don’t think I made any really bad investments. I didn’t buy Tennessee Ave for very much and I still made some money off of it before I traded it straight up for a Railroad. My best investments were trading straight up. If I would have played again, I would have had all the railroads and then owned a a color that had just two properties so that I could still get double the rent and possibly some houses.
Because when there is one company that starts buying out every other company that makes the same part, then they can raise the prices because they know that the people making the product will need that product that they’re making and they can’t get it anywhere else because they bought out all the other companies and they can jack the prices. Our best investment was North Carolina and our worst was Pacific Avenue. I would have bought more properties because we only had four and kept landing on the other players properties.
In the game, we could auction things off if we didn’t want them. We could’ve traded but we didn’t. They were bailouts when we went to jail. We had some good economic decisions when we bought the railroads. A bad decision was when we didn’t get the last railroad. The best investments Kristian had was when we bought the railroads and the other ones. If we could play again, we should have bought the last railroad and bought some more things.
I think that auctioning off the properties helped make it more realistic. Also as more of the properties got more the higher the price for each property went up. For example, when people are trying to get a monopoly on a property they will spend more on a property. Then the monopoly has potential to make more money. The bailouts (free parking) would help out a lot in the game. Even though we didn’t land on any. You also need to kind of plan ahead on your economic decision and think about if it will make more in the future and if you will profit from it. Our worst economic decision would probably have to be either purchasing Boardwalk or Park Place. We didn’t really make much money off of it. Our best economic decision would have to be purchasing the electric company and water works. We made money off of those properties. If we were to play again I would have tried to get more monopolies and buy the red properties. The red properties seemed to get landed on a lot. I would also try to get houses and hotels on the properties.
It’s a good example of how are economy works because the prices up the buildings went up (inflation). Supply and demand people wanted to make monopoly so they would pay higher prices to make sure that they got all of the properties for that certain color. Bailouts helped a lot, thats what gave us quite a bit of money when we barely had any. We had some bad economic decisions by not buying the right properties, I feel that we should have bought more.
I think that our best investment was probably North Carolina or St. James. That is what most people landed on. Our worst investment was probably Pacific Avenue. We ended up mortgaging it and that was probably the best one to mortgage because barely any people landed on it.
What I would have done differently is made different purchases and not let people get as many monopolies.
1. Explain how the monopoly game with the rules we followed was a great example on how our economy works. Make sure you include inflation, supply and demand, bailouts, and good/bad economic decisions.
It was a good example because everything that we did in a game was pretty much an example of something that happens in real life. Inflation was when we all gained a whole bunch of money trough investments and the free handouts that it made everything cost more. Then as the properties got scarcer and scarcer the prices went way up because people needed them for different reasons. Then when you landed on free parking that was like bailouts. Then the choices you make were either good or bad depending on what you wanted.
2. Tell us about your best and worst investments.
Our best investments were all the red and yellow ones because we were able to put houses on them and eventually make back our money. Our worst investment was Baltic avenue because we only made $4 and paid around $100 for it.
3. Than explain what you would have done differently if you were to play again.
If I played again I would probably try not any other person to gain a monopoly. Then I would try to buy out an entire side of the board along with all of the railroads. I think I would also try to get a hotel on 3 of my properties
We had to auction places off. As there were fewer properties left to buy, the prices got higher. Bailouts were like the free parking spot, and if you landed on it you got all the “bailout” money in the middle. There was supply and demand when someone had one property and then wanted the others that go with it so they could have a monopoly. They would also be willing to pay a higher price for the property then. One of our worst investments was Boardwalk. Only one person landed on it, so we didn’t really get our money back. I’m sort of glad we bought it though, because we had a monopoly and they had to pay double the rent on Park Place. If we played again, I would probably be smarter with what properties I purchased.
I think that the game and our economy are a lot alike because the more that was spent the more the money in the game lost its value. That relates to us in real life because the more we spend the more our money loses its value. The supply of places to buy went down near the end of the game went down so the demand for places to buy went up. That relates to our economy because whenever we have a lot of something there isn’t much demand but when we only have a few of something the demand goes up. The bailouts in the game were nice to have just because you would be getting money at random times, sometimes some people would be luckier than others with the bailouts. I think this applies in the real economy because it’s nice to get a bailout but sometimes some people get more money than others. My best investment was Indiana Avenue because I gained $198. My worst investment was Illinois Avenue because I bought it for $855 and lost $165 on it. It evened out though because those were both red properties that I had put two houses on and still gained money for owning all three of them. If I played again I would make sure that I bought a lot of properties at the beginning because that’s when they were really cheap. Other than that there wouldn’t be many other things I would have done differently.
It was a good example because we were able to see what happened when supply and demands were high and how inflation changes and properties started becoming more expensive. The bailouts were good for some people to gain more money. I sadly never landed on any bailouts. My best investment was St.Charles Place. A lot of people were finally starting to land on that property. My worse investment was Virginia it only got landed on once and I lost $460. If I were to play again I would make sure to play smarter since I now know how things work.