Teaching Inequality: Cupcakes & Graphs

This paper presents a quick and easy-to-adopt classroom activity. While graphs are a great way to communicate data, instruction benefits from more modalities. Five students represent income quintiles. The instructor endows each participant with a share of cupcakes that mirrors the inequality data. I cover techniques that create dramatic tension. Following the literature, students perceive real world inequality to be less than what is observed. After the activity, the “rich” students often voluntarily redistribute their surplus to classmates. This opens the door to discuss the positive causes of inequality along with the normative debates about distribution.

by Christopher Clarke

Download

Clarke, C. (2026). Teaching Inequality: Cupcakes & Graphs. Available online at Journal of Economics Teaching, DOI: 10.58311/jeconteach/11016ca393e84e3eb3f925cb5eed73a6bf225f39

Want to be notified of articles when they are released? Subscribe to our newsletter!