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English
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Published:
2013-11-06
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401
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1/1
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The Economics of Teen Wolf

Summary:

The TW writers have done a great job of dropping literary hints and themes into the program, tying in the English Lit class and its set texts into the story arc. However the economics class of that fine teacher Coach Finstock is left to its own devices. A quick game of “risk and reward” does not cut it, and the blackboard in the sneak peek of 3b merely showed something about the GDP/GNP relationship - which probably does not hint at anything in the story. In the interest of economic education, I think the TW team should look to incorporate the story arcs into the economics classroom. Herewith some suggestions:

Work Text:

Pareto efficiency (or Pareto optimality): A point at which no one can be made better off without someone else being made worse off. Basically describes the point at which Scott makes a decision. Any decision.

Kaldor-Hicks efficiency: Those made better off by a change compensate (bribe) those made worse off by a change, and thus with compensation adjustments the change makes everyone better off than before. The cookies for Sterek campaign (?), Grandpa Argent and his attempts to manipulate Scott using Allison as a bribe

Prisoners’ Dilemma (game theory): Trust and cooperation. If two people cooperate they get a good outcome, if neither cooperate they get a bad outcome, if both pretend to cooperate and one cheats the cheater gets an excellent outcome and the other gets a bad outcome, if both pretend to cooperate and both cheat, they both get a bad outcome. Derek and Scott, aided by Deaton, with a bonus warning about anything to do with Peter

Akerlof’s “Market for lemons”: Asymmetric information leads to bad choices; if the seller of something knows more than the buyer of something in a market, good quality items are unlikely to be sold and the ignorant buyer will end up buying only bad quality items. Every life choice Derek Hale has made to date.

Gresham’s Law: Bad money drives out good. People will hold onto what is good, and try and pass on what is bad to others. Peter, Stiles and “do you want the bite?”

Thaler’s Law: Irrational value of loss. The value of an item that is taken away from a person is higher than the value the same person will ascribe to the same item if they are given the item (e.g. in sentiment terms people are far more negative about losing $100 that they owned than they are positive about receiving $100 which they had not owned before). Peter and alpha status, Stiles and Roscoe the Jeep

Economic Bliss Point: Where consuming more of anything would make the consumer less happy. Sheriff Stilinski and anything Stiles makes him eat

Veblen Good: Something for which demand rises as the cost of acquiring it rises (a status symbol, conspicuous consumption). Being the True Alpha, being art of the alpha pack, first line on the BH lacrosse team

And for background reading (per Stiles’s research) Ulthman et al (2010) “Economic evaluations of adult male circumcision” (it is a real paper).