EconGuru Economics Guide » Economics/Finance Simulator and Game, Virtual Economy, Stock Market Simulation

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Simulators

• Farmersi

  http://farmersi.net/

  Farmersi is an online turn-based multiplayer economic game operated by web browser, in which players manage their virtual farms in the Wild West - 19th century America. They grow crops, raise cattle and make investments. With the same initial conditions they try to develop their farms better and have higher profits than their opponents.

• Virtual Economy

  http://www.bized.co.uk/virtual/economy/

  This is a very comprehensive and realistic simulation of the economic decision-making processes of the UK government, with additional materials to help prepare you for the operation. At the heart of the Virtual Economy are sophisticated computer models which are very similar to those the Chancellor and his advisers use to prepare the Budget and to keep the economy on track.

• Virtual Bank

  http://www.bized.co.uk/virtual/bank/

  This virtual bank looks at the role of banks and central banks in the management of the economy and also the services that banks offer to support business, familiarizing you with how the policies of banks, other financial institutions and central banks may affect businesses and play in the management of economy.

• fxplayer

  http://fxplayer.com/

  FX Player is a fantasy online trading game that simulates a real FX trading environment, where you are given 50million of trading exposure to buy and sell currency.

• National Budget Simulator

  http://www.budgetsim.org/nbs/

  This simulation challenges the user to balance the 2006 US Budget by making a series of choices from drop-down menus. There are "short" and "long" lists of choices, so you can choose the level of detail. The site works mostly in text, but has an optional graphing feature. It's a way to look at the trade-offs which policy makers need to make in creating federal budgets and dealing with deficits.

Stock Games

• Virtual Stock Exchange

  http://vse.marketwatch.com/Game/Homepage.aspx

  With VSE you can create public or private games with a cash balance you set, choose from thousands of available games, test your strategy with a personal portfolio, and leverage powerful news and research resources from MarketWatch class.

• MyStocks

  http://investsmart.coe.uga.edu/C001759/stocksquest/mystocks.htm

  a global stock market game

• Stock Trak

  http://www.stocktrak.com/

  global portfolio simulations, a comprehensive financial simulation that allows its users to practice trading all types of securities

• National SMS

  http://www.nationalsms.com/

  stock market simulation featuring stocks, mutual funds, bonds, and commodities such as gold, silver, crude oil, and pork bellies

• Stock Market Game

  http://www.smg2000.org/

  virtual investments, real results

Others

• Forecasting Model for the UK Economy

  http://www.lancs.ac.uk/people/ecagj/fctest.htm

  This was created to support an introductory economics course. The user has control of nine exogenous variables and the model immediately forecasts unemployment, inflation and growth for the current year and two subsequent years. The model is based on a current year of 1998 but it is possible to change its parameters by saving the page to your own computer and changing the numbers with a text editor.

• Make Your Own Indicator of Sustainable Economic Welfare

  http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/sustainable_development/progress/make-own.html

  The focus of this interactive site is the comparison between GDP and welfare. It allows the user to select and balance several factors to produce a customised indicator. Java is used to plot a graph of this indicator over the second half of the twentieth century, with a plot of GDP for comparison. This page is part of the "measuring progress" section of the site, which has some background material and illustrative examples.

• Build Your Own Tax Policy

  http://www.taxpolicy.com/build.htm

  free interactive exploration of tax policy, for all ages

• Presidential Game

  http://bcs.worthpublishers.com/mankiw5/cat_070/president.htm

  Worth Publishers' companion site to Mankiw's textbook hosts several interactive features using Shockwave. One of them is this online game in which the student takes the role of American president, setting tax rates government spending levels and viewing the effects on a variety of indicators.

• Guided Tour of the Edgeworth Box Applet

  http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/ssc/labs/cameron/e1f98/imapedge.html

  The Edgeworth Box model shows how there can be "gains from exchange" between two consumers in a simplified economy where there are just two goods available (x and y) in limited quantity.