PlayEcon — Economic playground: learn economics by playing

PlayEcon is a free economic playground — an interactive economics simulator and supply and demand game for introductory microeconomics and macroeconomics. Instead of staring at static textbook diagrams, you drag supply and demand curves until markets move, run a central bank and steer a whole economy, and solve market "whodunit" case files — while drilling the core exam topics with quizzes actually written to be readable.

A supply and demand game and economics simulator in one

In the supply and demand game you drag the curves and watch equilibrium price and quantity move as markets shift, tax, or hit a price ceiling. In the economics simulator you take over a central bank, set interest rates, and try to steer inflation and unemployment across a whole economy. Together they make a hands-on economic playground for building intuition before the exam.

Microeconomics — markets, firms & choices

• Supply & demand lab — drag the curves and watch equilibrium price and quantity move in real time.
• Elasticity drills — price elasticity of demand and supply, total revenue, and how a tax splits between buyers and sellers.
• Market whodunits — diagnose why a price moved from the clues in each case file.
• Firms & costs — marginal cost, marginal revenue, and the profit-maximizing quantity.

Macroeconomics — the whole economy at once

• Central bank simulator — set interest rates and try to keep inflation and unemployment in check.
• GDP & growth — build up gross domestic product from consumption, investment, government spending and net exports.
• Inflation & the price level — see how money, demand and expectations push prices up.
• Fiscal multipliers — trace how a change in government spending ripples through the economy.

Who it's for

PlayEcon is built for intro econ students, self-learners brushing up before an exam, and anyone who wants the intuition behind supply and demand, elasticity, GDP, inflation and monetary policy without wading through a textbook. Everything runs in the browser and is free to use. People also search for it as “Playconomics” or “Economic Playground” — same site.

The full interactive version needs JavaScript enabled — turn it on to drag the curves and run the simulators.