
If you are in your first year, you may well have just become aware that we’re planning on a big board game experiment next term in macroeconomics. You might be thinking: why?!
One reason, we’ll admit, is that a number of us in the economics department quite enjoy playing board games. We’re not particularly weird and whacko in that respect: the board game industry is also thriving, with board game cafes are cropping up in the UK such as Draughts in London.
However, as economists we have another angle: board games are models. A model is a simplified version of reality, of something we wish to study or understand more. Of course, board games aren’t necessarily designed necessarily with that in mind – but nonetheless, games like Risk do provide some model of global warfare, games like Monopoly must provide some model of the property market, however warped and horrifying each might be.
Settlers of Catan is the particular game we’re using next term, and you might ask why? Well, Settlers is a game about settling: about groups of people settling in areas and developing. We can think about it as modelling the origins of growth – what does it take for groups to survive and prosper?
In the game, once initial settlements (and roads) have been placed, players must optimise given the constraints of the inputs available to them – land that produces, at random, materials necessary to further develop (build more settlements, build cities). Such development might be aided by trade: two players deciding that some swap of materials they have is mutually beneficial. The rate at which materials are traded reflects their value in the game – their relative scarcity, and hence we have inflation and deflation in a barter economy.
Quickly, you can see we can think about Settlers as an economic model. And that’s what we’ll do next term. You’ll be playing the game in Week 2, and for your essay at the end of term, you’ll be writing about Settlers as an economic model.
What do you need to do right now? You need to fill out this survey, as it will help us to set up game tables that enable us to best learn about the kinds of factors that lead to economic growth (and help you to write a better essay next term). And perhaps brush up on your knowledge of the game of Settlers of Catan 🙂