Resource Type Icon
Clock
15 minutes
Middle School - College
6 classes this week
Subjects: AP Economics Economics
Topics: Demand Role of Prices

How elastic are rubber bands? There's more than one way to answer this question. The word "elasticity" is commonly used to describe things that have a stretchy quality to them. You might try to answer the question by stretching a rubber band across your finger and shooting it across the room. To an economist, however, elasticity can have a whole other meaning. Learn more in this episode of The Economic Lowdown. 

View Voluntary National Content Standards in Economics

Content Standard 8: Role of Prices

Grade 8 Benchmarks

1. An increase in the price of a good or service encourages people to look for substitutes, causing the quantity demanded to decrease, and vice versa. This well-established relationship between price and quantity demanded, known as the law of demand, exists as long as other factors influencing demand do not change.

Grade 12 Benchmarks

1. Demand for a product changes when there is a change in consumers’ incomes, preferences, the prices of related products, or in the number of consumers in a market.

View Additional Resources