http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.pt/2017/08/reviving-living-paper-project.html

1. Price Theory
Ricardo Cruz
First Meeting – Portuguese Libertarian Party
July 9, 2017

2. What is this about?
• I started a side project to create web applets to teach economics
• These applets are based on sketches by economist David D.
Friedman
• It is an open source project; it will be great to have more people
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3. David D. Friedman
I absolutely adored one particular textbook: “Price Theory” by David D.
Friedman (1991).
His micro presentation is very lucid. But he still manages to insert a lot of
fun stuff.
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4. David D. Friedman
I absolutely adored one particular textbook: “Price Theory” by David D.
Friedman (1991).
His micro presentation is very lucid. But he still manages to insert a lot of
fun stuff.
• mainstream textbook with lots of fun examples:
◦ political market
◦ marriage market
◦ criminal market
◦ it even inserts a lot of fun evolutionary questions such as “why
male-female ratios are roughly 50%?”
• and, of course, all the usual supply-demand, elasticity, price
floors/ceilings, taxes, et cetra of microeconomics (aka price theory)
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5. David D. Friedman
He developed BASIC games to accompany his textbook.

6. David D. Friedman
He developed BASIC games to accompany his textbook.

7. David D. Friedman
He developed BASIC games to accompany his textbook.
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8. Supermarket

9. Supermarket

10. Supermarket
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11. Elasticity

12. Elasticity
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13. Exploiting price
assymetries 6 / 13

14. Exploiting price
assymetries 7 / 13

15. Furthermore, David D. Friedman made his textbook available online

16. Furthermore, David D. Friedman made his textbook available online
How cool would it be to remaster it?
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17. Utility
Interactive graphics can have more than one dimension:
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18. Motivation
Why?

19. Answer: The World Needs an Interactive Textbook
Bryan Caplan argues persuasively in the “Myth of the Rational Voter” (2007)
that voters would agree with economists if they studied the subject.
Enlightned
Economists
Public
Profits Supply/Demand
Gas prices are caused by
Enlightned
Economists
Public
No Minor Major
Too many immigrants, bad economy
Enlightned
Economists
Public
Bad None Good
Trade agreements impact on jobs
Enlightned
Economists
Public
No Minor Major
Foreign aid causing deficits
Source: SAEE by Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation & Harvard University, 1996.
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20. About me

21. About me
My introduction to economics:
2008: Ron Paul
SPAM
Mises.org Austrian
Economics
Googling I found lots of
material on
• I read a few mainstream textbooks
• I also did Micro I and Macro I in
FEP
I liked it a lot, but
I wanted to contrast
it with “neoclassical“
economics, so...
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22. About me
Studying economics blew my mind — I was addicted!
• I found many arguments shocking
• Economics destroyed my faith in “common sense”
◦ things like studying the minimum wage provoked much cognitive
dissonance and mental pain in me
• It was one reason why I went for a MSc in applied mathematics, and I
am now working in machine learning, doing a PhD in Computer Science
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23. Conclusion

24. • You do not need to know programming to join
• Most of the work is in designing these things
• Join the mailing list!
• https://github.com/price-theory/applets
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