Economics 7 Week Challenge Series – Challenge 6: Buying and Selling Game

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to the Economics 7 Week Challenge Series for 2022. Over 7 weeks, in the months of August and September, I will be running an economics challenge series. This series will consist of 7 challenges. Five of these challenges will be returning from last year’s Challenge Series and two of them are completely new. Below are the list of challenges.

• Challenge 1: Auction
• Challenge 2: Buying and Selling Game (Business Version)
• Challenge 3: Tax Game (New)
• Challenge 4: Game Theory
• Challenge 5: Make Me Happy
• Challenge 6: Buying and Selling Game (Original Version)
• Challenge 7: Pick-a-door (New)

Each challenge could reward winners with as much as 60 Hive. The value of the prize will depend on the level of participation. For each new participant, the prize will increase by 5 Hive. This will continue until 60 Hive is reached (12 participants). The first 12 participants will also receive a 50% upvote from this account. In addition to the prize money, the top few participants will be given points. These points will be used to determine the overall challenge series winner. This winner may receive as much as 80 Hive. The value of the prize will equal the sum of the number of participants across all challenges. This will continue until 80 Hive is reached.

For more information on the challenge series and the upcoming challenges, I recommend that you read my post Spectrumecons Seven-Week Challenge 2022 (Coming Soon) and watch my video.

Welcome to Challenge 6 – The ‘Buying and Selling’ Game.

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The Buying and Selling Game (Original Version) and the business version of the game are regular contests that I run on a monthly basis. Below are links to recent contests and their results posts and videos. Last on the list is original Buying and Selling Game from the 2018 Challenge Series. This is the only challenge to appear in all three challenge series.

• Buying and Selling Game Contest #31 – 30 Hive to be won
• Buying and Selling Game Contest 31 Results
• Buying and Selling Game Contest #29 – 30 Hive to be won
• Buying and Selling Game Contest 29 Results
• Buying and Selling Game Contest #27 – 30 Hive to be won
• Buying and Selling Game Contest 27 Results
• Spectrum Economics Challenge 3 – 25 SBD to be given away (Original Challenge from 2018

The ‘Buying and Selling’ Game is also explained in the following original video:

How to play?

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The ‘Buying and Selling’ Game involves three simple steps.

1. Choose one or more of six goods to buy.
2. Choose the city or town where you will be buying these goods.
3. Choose the city or town where you will be selling these goods.

All the information you need to know to play the game is provided in the question; i.e. no external research is required as all prices are hypothetical and locations are fictitious.

All entries must be made in the comments section of this post.

Each account is only permitted one entry.

Objectives of the game

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The objective of the game is to make the highest profit from the sale of all the goods you have bought. If two participants make the exact same profit, the participant that entered first wins.

Game assumptions

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All goods of the same type are identical; for example, Good A bought in Town X is the same as Good A bought in Town Y.

There are zero transaction and transport costs.

All cities and towns use the same currency.

What information is provided?

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• All the cities and towns are provided.
• All the goods that can be bought in the game are provided.
• All the buying prices of the goods are provided.
• None of the selling prices of the goods are provided. Instead, a possible range of prices is provided. This range is represented by maximum, minimum, and mode prices (i.e. most frequently occurring price). See diagram below.

Selling Price Distribution

Note: Triangular Distribution

How are the results of the game determined?

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A Microsoft Excel Model is used to determine the selling prices of each good in each city or town. These prices will be used to calculate the profits made by each participant. In the results post, the calculation of the selling price will be presented in a video. To learn more about how the results are calculated and presented, click on one of the results post links provided earlier in the post.

Contest Prizes

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The total prize for this challenge could reach as high as 60 Hive. The number of participants determines the value of the prize. For every entry, the prize is increased by 5 Hive until a value of 60 Hive is reached. The winner will receive 2/3 of the prize and second place will receive 1/3. For every entry, the prize is increased by 5 Hive until a value of 60 Hive is reached. The winner will receive 2/3 of the prize and second place will receive 1/3. The first 12 entries will be given upvotes.

The most profitable buying and selling price combination is also calculated. If the winner adopts this strategy and the value of the prize is below 60 Hive, he or she will receive an additional 5 Hive. The winner of this challenge will be given 20 points, second place 10 points, and third place 5 points. These points will be tallied at the end of the challenge series to determine the overall winner.

Let the challenge begin

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Participants have been allocated a budget of $15,000 to buy 1 or more desserts from any of the 5 towns or cities. These towns and cities are as follows:

• Sweet City
• Icing Town
• Cherry Top
• Syrup Hill
• Cream Falls

See map below:

Map of Towns and Cities

All types of desserts listed in the challenge are available in all 5 towns and cities. The available desserts are as follows:

• Ice Cream
• Cakes
• Pancakes
• Mousse
• Fruit Bowl
• Pudding

Table 1 contains the prices of each type of dessert for each town and city.

Table 1: Prices of desserts for each town and city

Note: desserts can only be bought as whole pieces. For example, a participant could only buy 5,172 Cakes from Cream Falls, as there is insufficient money to buy the 5,173^rd Cake.

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After buying the desserts, the participant must then sell all the desserts he or she has bought in just one of the towns or cities named in the question. Remember, the selling prices are revealed in the results post. These prices are determined using the information provided in Tables 2, 3, and 4.

Table 2: Minimum, maximum, and mode (Sweet City & Icing Town)

Table 3: Minimum, maximum, and mode (Cherry Top & Syrup Hill)

Table 4: Minimum, maximum, and mode (Cream Falls)

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Entry format

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For this challenge, I expect to see entries made in the following format:

Buying
Name of Place:
Goods purchased:
Number purchased:
Amount spent on goods:

Selling
Name of Place:

Example of entry

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Buying
Name of Place: Cherry Top
Goods purchased: Fruit Bowl
Number purchased: 7,500
Amount spent on goods: $15,000

Selling
Name of Place: Icing Town

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The closing date and time for this contest is 6PM coordinated universal time (UTC) 11/09/2022. Responses after this time will not be accepted. The answers will be provided in the results post along with the video containing the generation of selling prices using the model.

I hope everyone has fun and enjoys this sixth challenge. I look forward to your participation in the final challenge. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments section.

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More posts

If you want to read any of my other posts, you can click on the links below. These links will lead you to posts containing my collection of works. These 'Collection of Works' posts have been updated to contain links to the Hive versions of my posts.

Hive: Future of Social Media

Spectrumecons on the Hive blockchain