The movie covers specific economic concepts discussed within the context of intermediate microeconomics. Please keep in mind that you should discuss how the movie uses and illustrates economic ideas, not write a criticism of the movie or cinema as an art form. Still, you are welcome to think about the literary and cultural aspects of the film in your assignment so long as you also talk about economics. In addition, you need to put the concepts (the movie story takes place in which era?) in context and discuss whether the market today is the same as that described in the movie (make a case with specific examples and economic concepts).
Some of the concepts that must be discussed in this assignment include
- Industry of the firms portraited in the movie
- Market structure
- Product differentiation strategies
- Market Power
- Marketing and Advertising strategies
- Market players
- Barriers to entry
- Characteristics of the products
- Developing process of a product
- Goal of finding new products
- Non-price competition
- Demand and Elasticities
- Role of FDA
- You will not be graded on the writing per se — but part of what you will be graded on is the argument you make and how well you make it.
- You will also be graded on how well you summarize the movie, structure your essay (intro, body and conclusions) and discussion and present the different concepts illustrated in the movie (originality on how you bring the examples into your essay is also accounted for. The examples can only come from the movie or the industry portraited in the movie).
- You are also required to use graphical analysis (graphs should be done by the students, not taken from the internet and should be tailored to the situation being discussed in the essay) to support your argument when appropriate.
- Finally, please taken into account in which era the story of the movie takes place (Do you think the competitive landscape is still the same in 2025?).