Play the forces that built the modern economy.
Learn economics by doing — set prices in a working market, steer a country through a recession, trade commodities across four centuries of world history, or test yourself against the quiz library.
Ways to think like an economist.
Every game has an easy mode for beginners and an advanced mode with real historical parameters. Pick a lane.
The Price Maker
Run a lemonade stand in 1890s New York. Balance supply and demand curves, find the market-clearing price, and watch your surplus and shortage in real time.
Recession Navigator
You're the Treasury Secretary in 1930, 1979, or 2008. Make policy calls under real historical conditions and see whether your choices shorten the downturn or deepen it.
Trade Routes
Buy silk in Canton, sell spices in Amsterdam, and follow the actual price gradients that fueled the Age of Sail. Comparative advantage in your hand.
Two Islands
Play Ricardo's argument. Allocate labor between two goods across two countries, find the terms of trade that beat autarky, and see why nations trade even when one is better at everything.
Tariff Simulator
Set tariffs, watch retaliation, count the jobs and prices. A hands-on trade-war simulator with real presets: Smoot-Hawley 1930, the 2018 US–China tariffs, and the 2025 reciprocal tariffs.
The Chair
You are the Chair of the Federal Reserve. Twelve FOMC meetings, real historical crises, a live economy that reacts to every move. Steer inflation to 2% and unemployment to 4% — or don't.
Supply & Demand Sandbox
Grab a curve. Slide it. Tilt it. A no-scoring playground for shifts and elasticities, with real-world presets from oil shocks to viral fads.
Elasticity Simulator
Raise a price 10%. Does revenue rise or fall? Pick a good — insulin, gasoline, luxury cars — and see how elasticity flips the answer.
Price Ceiling Simulator
Cap the rent. Watch a shortage form, a queue lengthen, a black market open. Rent control, WWII gasoline, Venezuelan fuel — all in one diagram.
Price Floor Simulator
Set the minimum wage. Or the price of milk. Watch surplus grow, unemployment climb, and the taxpayer bill for the cheese mountain add up.
Prisoner's Dilemma
Cooperate or defect. Play iterated rounds against Tit-for-Tat, Grim Trigger, and other classics from Axelrod's 1980 tournament. Learn how cooperation emerges.
Housing Bubble Simulator
You're the regulator for 20 years starting in 2000. Set rates, lending standards, and cooling measures. Inflate — and try to land — a housing bubble.
Inflation Calculator
What was a dollar worth in 1920? In 1975? In 2000? U.S. CPI-U from 1913 to today, with a purchasing-power chart.
Solow-Swan Growth Model
The workhorse model of long-run growth, augmented with human capital (MRW 1992). Set savings, population, and technology — see steady states, the golden rule, and convergence.
Price Elasticity Calculator
Two price-quantity points in, elasticity out. Midpoint (arc) formula with worked steps and the revenue implication.
AP Macroeconomics Practice
Six unit quizzes aligned to the College Board CED. AP-exam difficulty. 60 questions total with detailed explanations. Free.
AP Microeconomics Practice
Six unit quizzes on supply-demand, elasticity, cost curves, monopoly, factor markets, and externalities. 60 questions at AP difficulty.
Phillips Curve Simulator
Watch the 1958 inflation-unemployment tradeoff break down under Friedman-Phelps expectations. Run oil shocks. Try the Volcker disinflation.
The Quiz Library
Four branches — macro, micro, economic history, and personal finance — at beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. Nearly 100 questions with explanations.
Textbooks tell. Games show.
Economics is a system of forces. Reading about a supply curve isn't the same as pushing it and seeing what breaks.
Play the model, not the definition
Every game is a working simulation. Change one input, and the whole system responds — the way a real economist would test intuition.
Anchored in real history
Scenarios use NBER business-cycle data, actual policy responses, and historical price gradients. You're not playing hypotheticals — you're playing 1930.
Two difficulties, one page
Easy mode teaches the concept with generous hints. Advanced mode strips them away and lets you break things — the fastest way to actually learn.
Bite-sized, replayable
Each game runs 3-8 minutes. Perfect between classes, on a commute, or as a warm-up before a longer video from One Small Step History.
A history channel with a curious streak.
Small Step Econ is the games arm of One Small Step History — a media project about the small decisions that reshape the world. Economics is where those decisions get their teeth. Playing them is how we make them stick.
One email a month. New games first.
A short dispatch from Small Step Econ & One Small Step History: new games and quizzes, the history behind them, and an occasional deep dive. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.