https://www.npr.org/transcripts/457408717

Podcast: The Pickle Problem

1. How was Feeding America's former food distribution system similar to a command economy? How did that make it an inefficient system?
2. Feeding Americans created an auction market using fake money. How did the initial allocation of money consider concerns about equality (the distribution of the slices of a pie in an economy) in the market?
3. Why do some goods have a negative value in the fake food bank economy? What does that mean?
4. Explain why it was rational for a food bank in Indiana to bid twice as many shares as the food bank in New Jersey for cereal. Try to use the terms marginal benefit and marginal cost in your answer.
5. Why is peanut butter much more valuable than dairy products in the fake food bank economy?
6. When food banks accumulate excess food items, they tend not to "sell" them to other food banks in exchange for "fake money." Why is this behavior rational? Try to integrate the concept of opportunity cost in your answer.