Title: Pass GO and collect $610: modified Monopoly for teaching inequality

Authors: Kevin W. Capehart; Va Nee L. Van Vleck

Addresses: Department of Economics, California State University, Fresno, USA ' Department of Economics, California State University, Fresno, USA

Abstract: Modified versions of the board game Monopoly have been used to teach inequality. This paper reviews modifications suggested in the pedagogical literature and then reports survey-based results on whether playing a modified version of the game affected students' objective perceptions or subjective attitudes towards inequality. Our survey results suggest that, compared to a group of students who received only a traditional lecture on inequality statistics, students who played the modified Monopoly game saw larger improvements in their objective perceptions of the actual extent of income and wealth inequality and, also, bigger changes in their subjective attitudes about the importance of inheritance, luck, and hard work to real-world success. Yet, attitudes were not dramatically affected by playing the game and misperceptions about basic inequality statistics remained, so higher impact approaches to teaching inequality are still needed.

Keywords: income inequality; wealth inequality; Monopoly; games.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPEE.2018.092237

International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education, 2018 Vol.9 No.1/2, pp.144 - 167

Received: 04 Aug 2017
Accepted: 09 Feb 2018
Published online: 11 Jun 2018 *

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