• 60 prompts
  • Checked October 2026

Economics Writing Prompts

Stories and opinions that each use one economics idea: producer, consumer, trade, price, scarcity.

Economics Writing Prompts

Show all 60
  1. A river town lives on one natural resource. Write a day in the town the year it runs low.Idea: natural resources occur in and on the earth and are used to produce goods and services.
  2. Should kids be paid for good grades? Argue yes or no.Idea: an incentive is a reward that makes people better off or a penalty that makes them worse off.
  3. Two neighbors each grow what the other cannot. Write the first trade over the fence, and the second, which goes better.Idea: workers who specialize rely on others to produce the other goods they want.

Next step Argue about what is fairWrite about a job

All 60 prompts

Producers and consumers 15

  • A cookie baker runs out of flour on the busiest day of the year. Write the morning as the baker. Idea: an intermediate good becomes part of another good, as flour becomes part of cookies.
  • A farmer, a miller and a baker each think their work matters most to a loaf of bread. Write the argument. Idea: human resources are the people who do mental or physical work to produce goods and services.
  • A kid invents a product nobody has asked for yet. Write the first week of looking for one consumer. Idea: entrepreneurs are willing to take risks to develop new products and start new businesses.
  • A new machine reaches a small workshop and does in an hour what took a day. Write what the producers say at lunch. Idea: technology is knowledge applied to the production of goods and services.
  • A river town lives on one natural resource. Write a day in the town the year it runs low. Idea: natural resources occur in and on the earth and are used to produce goods and services.
  • A shoemaker is the only one in the valley. Write about the day she decides to stop growing her own food. Idea: specialization is working at one job and relying on other workers to produce other goods.
  • A town has only producers and not one consumer. Write what the shops look like by Friday. Idea: an economy is a system of production and distribution of resources, goods and services.
  • Be a producer at home for one day: choose what to make, then write about who consumes it and what they say. Idea: consumption happens when people use goods and services.
  • Describe a busy kitchen where every cook does one small job. Then one cook is out sick. Idea: in a division of labor, each person completes one small part of a larger task.
  • List the tools in a workshop you know, then write about the one tool the work could not go on without. Idea: capital resources are goods made by people and used to produce other goods: tools, machines, buildings.
  • Pick one thing on your desk and write the story of the producers who made it, back to the very first one. Idea: producers are people who make goods and services.
  • Sort one family's Saturday errands into goods and services, then write about the service you would miss most. Idea: goods are objects that satisfy people's wants. Services are actions that do.
  • Write about a producer whose most valuable tool is something she knows how to do. Idea: human capital is the knowledge and skills people gain through education, experience and training.
  • Write about one morning from waking up to leaving home, and count every time you were a consumer before eight o'clock. Idea: consumers are people who buy goods and services to satisfy their wants.
  • Write the life story of a wool sweater, told by the sweater: the sheep, the mill, the shop, the first cold day. Idea: production uses resources and intermediate goods to make goods and provide services.

A trade 15

  • A storm closes the only road to an island and trade stops; the shop shelves empty out. Write the week. Idea: distance, mountains and rough seas are natural barriers to trade.
  • A trader carries salt over a mountain pass to trade for cloth. Write the journey and the bargain at the end of it. Idea: trade routes are the paths traders use to reach the people they trade with.
  • A village has no money at all. Write market day there. Idea: barter is trading goods and services for other goods and services without using money.
  • One marble changes hands five times in a day of schoolyard trades. Write the day as the marble. Idea: a medium of exchange is anything generally acceptable in exchange for goods and services.
  • To make a trade for a rare marble you gave up your whole afternoon at the pool. Write about what the trade really cost. Idea: opportunity cost is the best thing given up when a choice is made, the second choice.
  • The traders of an island agree that shells will count as money from tomorrow. Write the first morning. Idea: money is anything widely accepted in exchange for goods and services.
  • Two kids cannot agree how many stickers a comic book is worth in a trade. Write the haggling. Idea: a relative price is the cost of one good or service in terms of another.
  • Two kids trade lunches and one regrets it by the second bite. Write the trade and the regret. Idea: trade is the exchange of goods or services for other goods or services, or for money.
  • Two neighbors each grow what the other cannot. Write the first trade over the fence, and the second, which goes better. Idea: workers who specialize rely on others to produce the other goods they want.
  • Two siblings trade chores for a week and write the deal down. Write the deal, and the line that causes the trouble. Idea: a trade-off is giving up some of one thing in order to gain some of something else.
  • Write a trade between a grandparent and a grandchild in which nothing is bought: one skill taught for another. Idea: services are activities people do for us, and a trade can be of services as well as goods.
  • Write about a trade you once made with a friend: what each of you wanted, and whether each of you got it. Idea: wants are desires that can be satisfied by consuming goods and services.
  • You have eggs to trade and want shoes, but the shoemaker cannot stand eggs. Write how you get your shoes. Idea: a barter needs a coincidence of wants. Each side must be willing to take what the other has to trade.
  • You may trade with only one person in your class for a whole year. Write whom you pick and what each of you would bring. Idea: a choice is a decision made between two or more possibilities, called alternatives.
  • Your town sells one thing to the rest of the world and buys one thing from it. Invent both and write the day the trading ships come in. Idea: exports are produced at home and sold abroad. Imports are produced abroad and sold at home.

A lemonade stand 15

  • A kid wants to open a lemonade stand and has no money for lemons. Write the talk with the grown-up who might lend it. Idea: a loan is money given to someone for a short time that must be paid back.
  • A lemonade seller adds cookies to the table and something happens to the lemonade sales. Write it. Idea: complements are goods that are used together, such as paper and markers.
  • A lemonade seller buys a hundred lemons on a cloudy morning. Write the gamble, hour by hour. Idea: risk is the chance of loss.
  • A lemonade stand raises its price by a nickel. Write what three regular customers each do. Idea: as the price of a good rises, the quantity demanded falls. As the price falls, it rises.
  • A lemonade stand runs out of cups at noon with a line still waiting. Write the next ten minutes. Idea: a shortage is when the quantity demanded of a good is more than the quantity supplied at that price.
  • A second lemonade stand opens across the street. Write the afternoon. Idea: competition is when sellers compete with other sellers to sell products to buyers.
  • Add up everything a lemonade stand had to buy before it sold a single cup, and write the moment the owner sees the total. Idea: costs of production are what producers pay for the resources used to make a product.
  • At closing time a lemonade seller counts the money twice: before and after paying for the lemons. Write the two counts. Idea: profit is the revenue that remains after a business pays the costs of producing its good.
  • It is the hottest day of the year and the line at the lemonade stand goes around the corner. Write what the owner does about the price. Idea: demand is how much of a good buyers are willing and able to buy at all possible prices.
  • It rains all week and a lemonade stand has forty lemons going soft. Write the owner's plan. Idea: a surplus is when the quantity supplied of a good is more than the quantity demanded at that price.
  • The owner of a lemonade stand has to decide what to charge for a cup. Write her thinking out loud. Idea: price is the amount of money a consumer must pay to buy a good or service.
  • Two friends run a lemonade stand: one squeezes, one sells. Write the day they count how many cups each hour brings. Idea: productivity is the output of each worker in a unit of time.
  • Write a lemonade stand's last day of summer as the owner packs up, listing what she got out of it besides money. Idea: benefits are the rewards gained from an action or activity.
  • Write the first hour of a lemonade stand, from setting up the table to the first sale. Idea: a business produces the goods and services that are sold to consumers.
  • Write the sign for a lemonade stand, then the better sign after the first one brings nobody over. Idea: advertising is communication used by businesses to persuade consumers to buy.

An opinion to argue 15

  • A class has enough money for a field trip or new library books, not both. Argue for one, and say what is lost. Idea: economics studies the decisions people make when faced with scarce resources.
  • A lighthouse guides every ship, even the ones that paid nothing toward it. Who should pay for a lighthouse? Argue it. Idea: with a public good, use by one person does not prevent others from using it.
  • A town bans noisy ice cream trucks and something nobody planned for happens. Invent it, then argue whether the ban was still right. Idea: unintended consequences are the unexpected and unplanned results of a decision or action.
  • Is free always the best price? Write about something you took because it was free and never used. Idea: the zero-price effect is the extra value people place on something priced at zero.
  • Is it better to make everything you need yourself or to make one thing well and buy the rest? Argue it. Idea: specialization means producing fewer kinds of goods and services than you consume.
  • One member of a group project does nothing and gets the same grade. Is that fair, and what rule would fix it? Idea: a free rider receives benefits from something he or she does not pay for.
  • Should a country put a tax on toys made far away so that more toys are made at home? Argue it as a toy shop owner. Idea: a tariff is a tax that must be paid before a good may be brought into a country.
  • Should a shop be allowed to raise the price of umbrellas when it rains? Take a side and give your reasons. Idea: in a market economy, buyers and sellers meet to exchange goods and services and decide on price.
  • Should everyone in town pay for the playground, even people with no children? Argue it. Idea: taxes are money people are required to pay to government.
  • Should kids be paid for good grades? Argue yes or no. Idea: an incentive is a reward that makes people better off or a penalty that makes them worse off.
  • Should one company be the only one allowed to sell lunch at a school? Argue it. Idea: a monopoly is a market with only one supplier, or one dominated by one supplier.
  • There is one swing and ten kids at recess. What is the fairest way to share it? Argue for your plan. Idea: scarcity exists because there are not enough resources to produce everyone's wants.
  • Who really decides what a shop sells: the owner or the customers? Argue it. Idea: consumer sovereignty is the power of consumers to influence what is produced through what they buy.
  • Would you rather have more shops to choose from or lower prices in the one shop you have? Argue it. Idea: sellers compete on price, product quality, customer service, design and variety, and advertising.
  • You have paid for a movie and it turns out to be terrible. Stay or leave? Argue it. Idea: a sunk cost has already been incurred and cannot be recovered.

How it works

Each of these economics writing prompts is a story or an argument with one idea inside it, and the line under the prompt says the idea in a sentence. The sums are small: lunches, marbles, lemons, one swing at recess.

Read the full guide

Writing prompts for economics, one idea at a time

Fifteen prompts follow producers and consumers, from a river town to a cookie baker out of flour. Fifteen are trades, some with no money in them at all. Fifteen ask for an opinion: who should pay for a lighthouse that guides every ship?

Fifteen prompts at one lemonade stand

The owner sets a price, adds up her costs and counts the profit. A competitor opens across the street. She runs out of cups with a line waiting, and after a week of rain she is left with forty lemons going soft.

  • Write the story first and name the idea last. If the story works, the idea is already in it.
  • For an opinion prompt, say who gains and who gives something up.

Questions and answers

What is a good writing prompt for economics?

One where somebody has to choose. The traders of an island agree that shells will count as money from tomorrow: write the first morning. Or you have eggs to trade and want shoes, and the shoemaker cannot stand eggs.

Are these writing prompts for economics for kids?

Yes. The settings are a lunch table, a schoolyard, a kitchen and a lemonade stand, and each line gives its idea in plain words, such as opportunity cost: the best thing given up when a choice is made.

What economics ideas do the prompts cover?

More than fifty, each restating an entry in the glossary of Federal Reserve Education: barter, money, price, profit, competition, surplus and shortage, public goods, incentives, sunk cost, the free rider.

Is there an economics writing prompt about scarcity?

Yes. There is one swing and ten kids at recess: argue for the fairest way to share it. In another, a class has enough money for a field trip or new library books, not both.

More tools

Show 8 more

Browse Writing Prompts