Chapter 40 — Exercises

A1. Apply opportunity cost to a real decision you're facing right now. What are you giving up? A2. Find a political claim in today's news. Apply the six-question checklist from Chapter 2. A3. Compute: if you save $300/month starting at age 22 in an index fund earning 7%/year, how much do you have at age 65? What if you start at 32? A4. What is the most important economic question of your lifetime? (Climate? Inequality? AI? Healthcare? Housing? Growth?) Make your case. A5. Pick a policy debate from this course that you changed your mind about. What changed it? A6. Plan your capstone project: pick your city. What markets will you analyze? What data will you use? A7. Write a one-page "economic autobiography": how has economic thinking changed how you see the world? A8. The book ends with: "Economics does not require certainty — only curiosity, honesty, and the courage to let data change your mind." Do you agree?

This is the final exercise set. The capstone project awaits in part-10-capstone/.