The impacts of exogenous market and policy developments reverberate up and down the farm to the retail marketing chain, affecting consumer prices, farm input prices, and the economic well-being of many people. Applied economists have developed analytical tools that trace how developments at one point in the supply chain may affect prices and quantities at other points. The particular analytical tools proposed here aim to provide students with hands-on experience in using market models and real data to simulate relevant policy and market scenarios. We start with a simple model representing only the supply and demand for corn and end with a vertically integrated model that links corn, hog, and pork markets. Each phase of model development gives a chance to build and test economic intuition about how price effects come about and their impacts on various market participants: who benefits and who pays—the winners and losers.

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