You’ve Got Mail (1998)
Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks
A bit surprisingly, this romantic comedy starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks can be used to illustrate a number of key economic points in a way that students can easily relate to. Economies of scale, the costs of monopolistic competition and product differentiation, the tradeoffs between efficiency and variety, the impacts of the trend towards “McDonalidization”, and the many ways – both profound and mundane - that technology changes our lives are some of the topics for discussion.
You’ve Got Mail is best shown following material on costs of production, perfect competition), monopoly and monopolisitic competition and oligopoly. Students should be familiar with the concept of economies of scale and have covered the material on differences in efficiency of different market structures.
You may also want to assign selected chapters (most likely the introduction and the chapter on irrationality of rationality) from “The McDonaldization of Society” by George Ritzer published by Pine Forge Press, 2000.