Economics is the study of how societies, governments, businesses, households, and individuals allocate their scarce resources. It is a broad field that encompasses microeconomics, macroeconomics, and international economics. There is a wide range of economics trivia questions that can be asked, whether you're an economics student or someone who is curious about the subject.
Here are some examples of economics trivia questions you might come across: Who developed the theory of comparative advantage? Who wrote "The Wealth of Nations"? What is the difference between GDP and GNP? What is the name of the theory that states that prices will reach equilibrium in a competitive market? These questions cover a wide range of economics concepts and theories, including microeconomics, macroeconomics, international trade and development economics.
In addition to the technical aspects of economics, there are also many fun and interesting facts to learn about. For example, did you know that Adam Smith, who wrote "The Wealth of Nations" in 1776, is considered the father of modern economics? Or that GDP (Gross Domestic Product) measures the value of all goods and services produced within a country's borders, while GNP (Gross National Product) measures the value of all goods and services produced by a country's residents, whether they are located in the country or abroad? These trivia questions will not only test your knowledge, but also give you a glimpse into the many fascinating aspects of economics and its impact on society and the world.
58 Economics Trivia Questions Ranked From Easiest to Hardest (Updated for 2024)
- The elasticity of demand in a market has to be greater than what number in order for the demand to be considered elastic?
Answer: 1
- In economics, the Laffer curve describes the relationship between the rate of which compulsory financial charge and the resulting revenue? According to Benjamin Franklin, only this financial charge and death are certainties in life.
Answer: Taxes
- The common economics acronym DMU relates to the concept in which utility declines from each additional unit. What does DMU stand for?
Answer: Diminishing Marginal Utility
- What is the term for the change in behavior by buyers or sellers in the market in response to a change in price for a good or service?
Answer: Elasticity
- The Gini coefficient is a measure of statistical dispersion most often used in economics and policy to measure what?
Answer: Income distribution
- What type of "T" costs are those incurred during the process of buying or selling, on top of the price of whatever is being exchanged?
Answer: Transaction Costs
- What economics term is used to refer to people who aren't quite unemployed, but are working in a lower capacity than what they are qualified for? This typically includes a lower-paid job or fewer hours than desired.
Answer: Underemployed
- A CD is a savings instrument which typically earns more interest than a savings account but is bound by limits set within a contract. What does CD stand for?
Answer: Certificate of Deposit
- Many foreign companies operate in the FTZs of Costa Rica. These are economic areas that are typically removed from exempt from customs duties and receive other tax benefits. What does the term FTZ stand for?
Answer: Free Trade Zone
- The word will probably make you think of a group of people that’s up to some dirty dealings—and that'd be pretty accurate. In economics, which term refers to the secretive (and often illegal) practice among companies that would usually be rivals deciding to work together to influence the market in their favor (for example, through price fixing)?
Answer: Collusion
- Before achieving worldwide stardom as a rock and roll front man, which singer couldn’t get any satisfaction in studying accounting at the London School of Economics?
Answer: Mick Jagger
- What two-word term refers to the total dollar market value of a company's outstanding shares?
Answer: Market Capitalization
- Although colloquially used as a term to indicate that the unemployment rate is substantially higher than normal, an economist will tell you that the technical definition reflects two straight calendar quarters of negative growth of real GDP. What is the term?
Answer: Recession
- Often attributed to a 1980 Virginia newspaper article as the source, the common acronym NIMBY holds what meaning related to local politics and anti-development tendencies?
Answer: Not in my backyard
- Sequoia and Accel are both financial firms that are considered hallmark members of what sub-class of private equity investing?
Answer: Venture Capital
- Sadie Alexander was a civil rights activist of the early-to-mid twentieth century, and the first African-American to receive a PhD in what "E" field of study while in the United States?
Answer: Economics
- Increasingly popular as a way to attain exposure to a wider array of investments, the financial term ETF most often stands for what three words?
Answer: Exchange Traded Fund
- According to FocusEconomics, which country, the only English speaking one in South America, will have the fastest growing economy in the world from 2022-2026?
Answer: Guyana
- Also referred to as a "retrospective cost," what is the more common, four-letter name for a cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered?
Answer: Sunk cost
- "A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" is the subtitle of what 2005 book that spawned a public interest in behavioral economics and led to multiple sequels and a long-running podcast?
Answer: Freakonomics
- Economists Clément Juglar and later Joseph Schumpeter suggested four stages for an economic cycle: Expansion, Crisis, Recession, and what fourth stage?
Answer: Recovery
- There's a three-word economic term abbreviated FoP that stands for the inputs needed to create a good or service, and was originally defined to include land, labor, and capital. What do these letters stand for?
Answer: Factors of Production
- What smartphone app and fintech company was founded by father and son duo Walter Wemple Cruttenden III and Jeffrey James Cruttenden to promote incremental and passive investing in 2014? The company's app features a light green color scheme and shares its name with a seed enclosed in a tough, leathery shell. The portfolio options the company offers were designed in part by Nobel laureate Harry Markowitz.
Answer: Acorns
- The paper currency in Botswana is named "pula" which translates to what natural phenomenon? This is a reference to the value of this phenomenon as much of the country is within the Kalahari Desert.
Answer: Rain
- What is the name of the 1980 book by free-market economists Milton and Rose Friedman that was adapted into a popular ten-part miniseries on PBS?
Answer: Free to Choose
- Which phrase is used to describe the unseen force that moves the economy toward the most efficient use of resources as a consequence of people and businesses in a free-market economy making financial choices that benefit them the most?
Answer: Invisible Hand
- Being the most recent Indian winner, Abhijit Banerjee won his Nobel Prize in 2019 in which of the six possible categories?
Answer: Economics
- Sharing the award in 2019 with her MIT colleague Abhijit Banerjee and Harvard's Michael Kremer, what poverty researcher is the youngest person ever to have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics?
Answer: Esther Duflo
- About one third of the U.S. government's revenue came from liquor and alcohol until a 1913 Constitutional amendment allowed for a tax on what?
Answer: Income
- The intergovernmental organization OPEC was founded in 1960 in Baghdad. What does the E in OPEC stand for?
Answer: Exporting
- Originally published in 1776, what famous Adam Smith book described financial systems in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution?
Answer: Wealth Of Nations
- In the standard financial reporting metric EBITDA, what does the "A" stand for?
Answer: Amortization
- What Midwestern school is often associated with the "dismal science" of Economics in part due to boasting over two dozen Nobel Prize winners in the field?
Answer: University of Chicago
- In economics, what 9-letter word means simultaneously buying an asset in one market and selling the asset in another to take advantage of price differences between markets?
Answer: Arbitrage
- What country has the lowest GDP per capita in the world that is also a member of the United Nations? (Hint: It didn't become a member until July 2011)
Answer: South Sudan
- Bueller? Bueller? The droning "economics teacher" from Ferris Bueller's Day Off was portrayed by what former presidential speechwriter?
Answer: Ben Stein
- On October 29, 1929, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 11% in a single day, so the date is commonly known by what dark two-word phrase?
Answer: Black Tuesday
- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was formed in 1944 by the ideas of Harry Dexter White and John Maynard Keynes with objectives to secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world. In what American city is the IMF headquartered?
Answer: Washington
- What English cleric and scholar penned an essay in 1798 on "the Principle of Population" and has a namesake "trap" which theorizes that humans are likely to utilize abundance for population growth rather than for maintaining a high standard of living?
Answer: Thomas Malthus
- What world leader defined "politics" as "the most concentrated expression of economics" in 1903?
Answer: Vladimir Lenin
- What is the alphanumeric economic term that represents the money supply composed of physical currency and checkable deposits that is generally considers the most liquid portions of the money supply?
Answer: M1
- What is the surname of the 1972 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics whose impossibility theorem states that community-wide ranked preferences cannot be determined by converting individuals’ preferences from a fair ranked-voting electoral system?
Answer: Arrow
- The autonomous region of Cantabria in northern Spain has what port city as its capital? The city is home to Spain's largest bank.
Answer: Santander
- The phrase "there's no such thing as a free lunch" is illustrated by movement between two points along which curve illustrating the varying amounts of two products that can be produced when they depend on the same finite resources?
Answer: Production Possibilities Frontier
- First coined and explained by 19th-century mathematician William Forster Lloyd, what is the "tragic" term in economics which describes a situation where individual users act independently according to self-interest and ultimately deplete a resource through uncoordinated action?
Answer: Tragedy of the Commons
- Different from a monopoly, in which one firm controls the majority of selling in a market, what term is usedwhen there is a single buyer in a market for a certain good?
Answer: Monopsony
- What former financial analyst and television host was named as the Director of the National Economic Council under President Donald Trump in 2018, replacing Gary Cohn?
Answer: Larry Kudlow
- What is the 7-letter "A" economic term for being self-sufficient? The term is typically applied to political states or economy system.
Answer: Autarky
- What is the often-acronymed theory in financial economics that states that asset prices fully reflect all available information? This theory directly leads to the assumption that it is impossible to consistently "beat the market" absent of inside information.
Answer: Efficient Market Hypothesis
- Often considered a foil to John Maynard Keynes, what Austrian-born economist settled in Britain, won the Nobel Prize, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and is largely known for his contribution to our knowledge of changing prices and their ramifications?
Answer: F.A. Hayek
- What school was founded by four men and women in 1895 (one of whom was writer George Bernard Shaw!)? Starting in 2008, this public research university began awarding degrees in its own name rather than awarding degrees of the University of London.
Answer: London School of Economics
- What French mathematician and child prodigy exchanged a series of influential letters with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory that strongly influenced the development of modern economics and social science?
Answer: Blaise Pascal
- Sharing afirst name with JFK, what noted economist served as ambassador to India during JFK's presidency?
Answer: John Kenneth Galbraith
- What economist with an “M” name was a co-winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Economics for his use of game theory to develop new auction formats? He runs the company Auctionomics, which offers sofware to facilitate auctions and exchanges.
Answer: Paul Milgrom
- Generally considered a rough proxy for whether the rewards of an investment justify the risk, Nobel Prize winner Bill Sharpe created the eponymous ratio which divides investment return by what denominator?
Answer: Standard deviation
- Born in Vienna, Friedrich Hayek was a member of what individualistic school of economic thought?
Answer: Austrian School
- In economics, what is the two-word term for a situation where an entity (a person, for example, or a corporation) has an incentive to act in risky ways because they will not bear the full costs of that risk? This term can be found as far back as the 17th century and was widely used by British insurance companies by the late 19th century.
Answer: Moral hazard
- What "C" word is generally applied to the school of thought in economics that flourished in Britain in the 18th & early 19th century with Adam Smith, Jean-Baptiste Say, David Ricardo, Thomas Robert Malthus, and John Stuart Mill producing theories of market economies as largely self-regulating systems?
Answer: Classical economics
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About the Author
Eli Robinson is the Chief Trivia Officer at Water Cooler Trivia. He was once in a Bruce Springsteen cover band called F Street Band.
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