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Starting his introductory microeconomics course off with a demonstration of monopoly power, Professor of Economics Adlai Woodsworth taught his students their first lesson of the semester by jacking up the price of the mandatory textbook he wrote for the course.
“Lesson number one in every economics course is supply and demand,” Woodsworth told the lecture hall full of students while holding up a copy of his textbook, which he had recently marked up to $400. “I supply the book, and I demand that you buy it. See how that works?”
Woodsworth explained that he inflated the price of “Fundamental Economics” by Adlai Woodsworth before requiring students to purchase it in order to teach his class how to think like economists.
“My hope is that this learning experience will help you understand the central economic concept of opportunity costs,” Woodsworth said while showing the class where exactly to purchase his textbook online. “By that, I mean the opportunity to take this course will cost you.”
Learning quickly to act as rational consumers in a free market, most of Woodsworth’s students proceeded to illegally download a free PDF of the book online.
