This feature explores the operation of individual markets. Patterns of behavior in markets for specific goods and services offer lessons about the determinants and effects of supply and demand, market structure, strategic behavior, and government regulation. Suggestions for future columns and comments on past ones should be sent to James R. Hines Jr., c/o Journal of Economic Perspectives, D…
model is any simplified representation of reality that is used to better understand real-life situations. But how do we create a simplified representation of an economic situation? One possibility—an economist’s equivalent of a wind tunnel—is to find or create a real but simplified economy. For example, economists interested in the economic role of money have studied the system of ex…