How Can I Make Better Choices?

Keystone Principle #7 – Economic Thinking is Marginal Thinking

Click here for a printable PDF version of this Monthly Teaching Theme Assessment

(Primary Grades)

Name ___________________________________

Date _______________

Do you agree or disagree with the ideas in the following statement? What does marginal thinking have to do with your answer?

“I paid to see this movie, and I will keep watching it even if I don’t like it.”

How Can I Make Better Choices?

(Elementary Grades)

Name ___________________________________

Date _______________

I. On a separate sheet of paper, write answers to the following questions: Do you agree or disagree with the ideas in the following statement? What does marginal thinking have to do with your answer?

“I paid to see this movie, and I will keep watching it even if I don’t like it.”

II. Vocabulary

Match each word with its definition

____ 1. Marginal
____ 2. Marginal cost
____ 3. Marginal benefit
____ 4. Sunk costs
____ 5. Utility
a. The additional gain from consuming or producing one more unit of a good or service; can be measured in dollars or satisfaction.

b. An abstract measure of the satisfaction consumers derive from consuming goods and services.

c. Things you have already given up in order to try to get something.

d. An economic word that describes the additional cost (or the additional benefit) of a given behavior.

e. The increase in a producer’s total cost when it increases its output by one unit.