Where This Fits in Your Curriculum

What Students Will Learn

• Explain how spending, the wages a room signs and the prices that follow produce inflation, and why wages on year-long contracts fall behind prices.
• Explain how a higher interest rate slows spending on homes and cars first, then hiring and prices, and why the bank must act before its report shows the problem.
• Tell a supply shock (fuel costs more for good) from demand-pull inflation, and say what the interest rate can and cannot do about each.
• Read inflation, unemployment and the real interest rate from a report that is a half-year old, and judge a policy by points off target.

Cases Included

• CEE Standard 18 (in part) - the country's prices and jobs come out of the hiring, pricing and spending decisions every table makes at once
• CEE Standard 19 (in part) - inflation costs workers on fixed contracts real income; unemployment costs the workers nobody hired their pay
• CEE Standard 20 (in part: monetary policy only) - the central bank's interest rate moves spending, hiring and prices, with a lag
• C3 D2.Eco.11.9-12 - students read inflation, unemployment and the real interest rate from a report that is a half-year old and use them to judge where the economy is going
• C3 D2.Eco.12.9-12 (in part: monetary policy) - the bank chooses a rate path for a hot economy and for a supply shock, and the class evaluates it against a bank that never moved
• AP Macroeconomics 4.2 (in part) - the bank's screen shows the real interest rate as the rate minus expected inflation, and spending answers the real rate, not the posted one
• AP Macroeconomics 4.6 (in part: the policy rate only) - the bank raises or lowers one rate to slow or speed the economy
• AP Macroeconomics 5.2 (in part) - the trade-off between inflation and unemployment is felt in play; the curve is drawn only in debrief question 4

Social & Emotional Learning (CASEL)

Aligned to the CASEL framework's core competencies. These are the SEL skills students actively practice while playing.

• Relationship Skills Every wage is struck face to face: a Runner and two Bargainers have to reach a deal both tables can live with, while the rival business is across the room.
• Responsible Decision-Making Businesses hire for the buyers they expect, not the ones they had, and the bank decides on a report that is already a half-year old.
• Social Awareness The debrief asks who lost when prices ran ahead of wages: the workers on year-long contracts, and the workers nobody hired.
• Self-Management The bank has to stay patient through the lag while tables come to argue for the rate they want.

Flexible Class Sizes

How the Game Plays Out

Hand Each Student Their Own Sheet

One click on the teacher dashboard prints a dossier for every role - background, goals, key facts, and their confidential briefing - plus the primary-source packet and a vocabulary sheet. Print them, or save as PDF, so each student reads their role on paper instead of huddling around one screen. The app still runs the votes and the action; the paper just carries the reading.

Primary Sources

Every role includes real historical documents. Students read them because they need the information to make their case.

Key Terms Students Will Learn

After the Game: Debrief Questions

1. Find the first half-year the RATE line on the chart went up, if it ever did. What did builder buyers do after it, compared with the dashed line? Did unemployment rise? Did inflation slow?
2. If the fuel shock came, did inflation on the chart jump once or keep climbing after it? Think of the wages signed in the room.
3. Look at the wages the room signed. Did they rise faster or slower than inflation on the chart? Who gained? Who lost?
4. Plot each half-year on the exit ticket's grid: unemployment across, inflation up. Is there a Phillips curve?