The International Trade Game ยท Digital Edition
turns the celebrated International Trade Game into a complete digital simulation. Nations with unequal resources manufacture goods, strike deals, ride price shocks and discover comparative advantage for themselves, with no scissors, paper or glue to buy, and a full instructor console, scenario packs, analytics and debrief toolkit built in.
Runs in any browser ยท No installs, no student accounts ยท Works offline once loaded ยท 2 to 8 teams ยท Have an access code?
Why instructors choose it
Built on John Sloman's classic classroom design and the patterns of leading teaching platforms: join codes, instructor controls, live dashboards and ready-made debriefs.
From advanced industrial Nordhaven to resource-rich Terravia, each country card mirrors a real-world archetype with its own capital stock, raw materials and productivity table, so factor endowments and Heckscher-Ohlin logic are baked into play.
Teams manufacture goods through a fast quality-control mini-game. Defects waste materials, standards tighten mid-game, and every country's output speed differs, making opportunity cost something students feel.
Posted prices move with scripted supply and demand shocks, announced on a projected newswire. Export contracts pay premiums for planned production, and the World Bank offers tools and loans at painful rates.
Trades happen face to face and are recorded in each nation's ledger. Cartels, alliances, broken promises, tariffs and sanctions all become debrief gold.
Master timer with pause and extend, price board, read-aloud newswire, auction toolkit, custom announcements, leaderboard with podium reveal, and copy-out results for your gradebook.
A three-stage debrief and an in-app Academy covering absolute and comparative advantage, factor endowments, terms of trade and trade policy, including an interactive comparative advantage calculator.
How it works
Open on the big screen as Instructor, pick a scenario and game length, and read the class settings aloud.
Each team opens the same link on a laptop or phone, enters a team name and takes the nation you assign. Count down together and start.
Twenty minutes of production, deals and price shocks. Collect GDP figures, reveal the podium, then run the guided three-stage debrief.
Scenario packs
The faithful digital adaptation: unequal endowments, a triangle glut, a circle boom, an innovation summit and a closing rally. The cleanest route to comparative advantage and gains from trade.
Commodity-cycle chaos: spikes, crashes, a recovery boom and a late flash dip. Teaches diversification, market timing and why terms of trade shift, ideal for second plays.
An autarky opening, a customs-duty window, an export subsidy, sanctions on a major power and a closing trade accord. Institutions, protectionism and the WTO come alive.
Four ways to teach with it
The live classroom game is the centrepiece. Around it sit three self-study tools students can open any time, all from this page. Watch the 60-second tour to see each in action.
The multiplayer classroom simulation. Teams take nations, produce goods, negotiate deals and ride market shocks across three scenario packs, run from the projected instructor console.
An interactive lab for absolute and comparative advantage. Allocate workers between two goods in two economies and watch opportunity cost, specialisation and the gains from trade emerge, built on the classic UKโJapan and Bel Canto examples.
Eight short, sourced lessons from mercantilism to modern trade theory, with a comparative advantage calculator and a full reference list in APA style.
Exam-style multiple choice drawn at random from a large bank, with worked explanations, topic focus and a grade band, ideal for revision or a quick formative check.
Pricing
Access codes unlock the full simulation. Buy once per class or license your whole department. Prices shown are launch placeholders and can be updated by the owner in the configuration block.
About the creator
Lecturer in Economics ยท University of Dundee School of Business
is designed and operated by Dr Abubakar Hassan, Lecturer in Economics at the University of Dundee School of Business, where he teaches international trade, business strategy and quantitative methods, supervises doctoral researchers, and serves as a Senior Adviser of Studies. He holds a PhD in Energy Economics from the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy.
His work sits at the intersection of applied economics and pedagogy, with a particular interest in experiential learning: how simulation, negotiation and play make abstract theory tangible. distils years of running the International Trade Game with undergraduate and postgraduate cohorts, together with the published scholarship on trade, foreign direct investment and simulation-based teaching, into a platform any instructor can run in a single session.
FAQ
No. Teams open a link in any modern browser on a laptop, tablet or phone. The whole simulation runs client-side and keeps working even if the wifi drops mid-game.
All market events run on a shared deterministic schedule. Teams start together on the instructor's countdown, and every announcement is also read aloud from the projected newswire, exactly as a facilitator would in the paper game.
Two to eight nations per game, with two to ten students per nation. For larger cohorts, run parallel games in separate rooms, as with the original classroom design.
Scarcity, specialisation, absolute and comparative advantage, factor endowments, terms of trade, gains from trade, market volatility, negotiation and market power, and the role of institutions and trade policy.
Yes. Game length, scenario, autarky opening and team composition are configurable per session, and the owner can edit prices, access codes and branding directly in the file's configuration block.
Instructor and classroom codes are issued with your licence. Try DEMO for a free limited session.
Licensed session.
Last updated . These terms govern use of the Software. Please read them before purchasing or running a session.
"Software" means , the International Trade Simulator, including all screens, content, question banks, scenarios and documentation. "Licensor" means Dr Abubakar Hassan. "Licensee" means the individual or institution issued with a valid access code. "Participants" means students or other users taking part in a session run by the Licensee.
Subject to payment of the applicable fee, the Licensor grants the Licensee a non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the Software for educational and training purposes for the duration of the purchased term. An Educator licence covers one class group; a Department licence covers the named department. Participants may use the Software within a licensed session without holding their own licence.
The Licensee shall not: (a) publish, resell, sublicense or otherwise distribute the Software or its access codes; (b) post access codes on any public website, repository or social platform; (c) remove, obscure or alter any attribution, branding or copyright notice; (d) reverse engineer or create derivative works for distribution; or (e) use the Software to build a competing product. Reasonable configuration of scenarios, pricing and content for the Licensee's own teaching is expressly permitted and encouraged.
All intellectual property in the Software, including its design, code, scenarios, lessons and assessment items, remains the property of the Licensor. This licence conveys no ownership. Third-party scholarship referenced within the Software is cited to its authors and remains theirs; the Software's summaries and adaptations are original works of the Licensor.
Fees are stated at the point of purchase and are exclusive of applicable taxes unless otherwise indicated. Licences do not auto-renew unless expressly agreed. Because access is granted immediately on delivery of a code, refunds are at the Licensor's discretion; a request made within 14 days of purchase, and before the code has been used in a live session, will normally be honoured in full.
The Licensee is responsible for the conduct of the sessions it runs, including supervision of Participants and compliance with its own institution's policies. The Software must not be used unlawfully.
The Software runs in the browser and, once loaded, continues to operate without an internet connection. The Licensor does not guarantee uninterrupted availability of any hosted copy or of any optional third-party synchronisation service. Support is provided by email on a reasonable-endeavours basis.
The Software is a teaching simulation. Its nations, prices and outcomes are illustrative and deliberately simplified, and model no real economy. Nothing within it constitutes financial, investment, legal or policy advice.
The Software is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, express or implied, to the fullest extent permitted by law. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Licensor's total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with this licence shall not exceed the fees paid by the Licensee in the twelve months preceding the claim. Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, and nothing affects the statutory rights of a consumer.
The Licensor may suspend or terminate a licence, without refund, on material breach of clauses 3 or 6. On termination the Licensee shall cease all use of the Software and destroy any copies in its possession.
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This is a carefully drafted template that reflects how the Software actually works. It is not legal advice. Have it reviewed by a qualified solicitor before commercial launch, particularly where institutional procurement or cross-border sales are involved.
Last updated . What the Software does, and does not, do with data.
is built to collect as little as possible. It creates no user accounts, asks for no email addresses and requires no student registration. There is no tracking, no advertising, no profiling, and no sale of data to anyone.
The data controller is Dr Abubakar Hassan (). Where an institution runs its own sessions, that institution is the controller for anything it chooses to record about its own students, such as marks transcribed from the results screen.
Game progress, your theme, your music preference and your access code are stored in your browser's local storage, on your own device. None of it is transmitted to the Licensor. Clearing your browser data deletes it permanently.
If your instructor enables live sync, devices exchange only what is needed to keep the market in step: the team name your group chooses, the nation it plays, its in-game score, and the market state published by the console. Names, email addresses, student numbers and other personal identifiers are never requested or transmitted. Teams should choose a team name that is not a real person's name.
Live sync is optional and off by default. Where an institution enables it, session data passes through a database that the institution configures and controls, and to which the Licensor has no access. Session data is transient: it exists for the duration of the game, and room records should be deleted afterwards, ideally with automatic expiry configured.
Where processing occurs it rests on legitimate interests in delivering a requested educational activity. Because the Licensor collects no personal data, there is no personal-data retention: game state is ephemeral and device-local.
The Software is intended for higher and further education and is not directed at children under 13. Institutions should apply their own safeguarding and data-protection policies.
The Software sets no cookies and contains no third-party analytics or advertising trackers. It loads a web font from Google Fonts, which may log the requesting IP address as part of delivering that font. Institutions with strict requirements can self-host the font or remove that request.
Under the UK GDPR you have rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, objection and portability. As the Licensor holds no personal data about Participants, such requests will normally be answered by confirming that no data is held. You may also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).
Any material change will be reflected in the "last updated" date above.
This notice is a carefully drafted template and accurately reflects the Software's behaviour, but it should be checked against your institution's data-protection policy, and by a qualified adviser, before commercial launch.
Home overview
The International Trade Game is an experiential learning activity: nations with deliberately unequal resources must produce, negotiate and sell in a live world market. It turns abstract theory into a hands-on, competitive exercise, so that specialisation, opportunity cost and comparative advantage are discovered rather than recited.
Live multiplayer. Eight nations, five goods, three scenarios.
Bid for national priorities. Scarcity, choice and opportunity cost.
The Absolute & Comparative Advantage Simulator, built interactively.
Eight sourced lessons and a live CA calculator.
Randomised exam practice with worked explanations.
Strategy playbook
Winning is not about producing the most goods. It is about producing the right goods and pricing your scarcity well. These tips are drawn from trade theory and from what actually decides the leaderboard.
Share this code with your teams. Their market, clock and shocks will follow this console automatically.
Teams enter this on the join screen
Enter the room code shown on the projected console. Your clock, prices and news will then match the class exactly. Leave blank to play solo.
Team setup
Match the settings your instructor reads out, then select the country you were assigned. Endowments are deliberately unequal: that is the economics.
Read your country card below. When the instructor counts down 3-2-1-TRADE, press start. All teams start together so market events hit everyone at once.
Buyers pay a premium over spot for planned bundles. Each contract can be fulfilled once by your nation, straight from your warehouse.
Closed until the Technology Expo. Premium prices; a last resort, never a strategy.
Negotiate face to face, agree terms, then both teams record their own side. Instructors can audit the ledgers. Broken promises are legal โ and remembered.
Short lessons on the theory behind the game, plus a comparative advantage calculator.
Markets closed
Final GDP โ report this to the instructor's World Market screen.
GDP over the session
Pause and extend shift the schedule on this device only. Call "PAUSE" and have every team press pause together; same for +1 minute.
Scarce capital sells high. Announce an auction five minutes ahead, run a 60-second open outcry here, and let the winner buy from the World Bank or a rival at the hammer price.
Flash a headline on this screen, then read it aloud. Useful for warnings, praise or improvised shocks.
Fire an off-script shock on top of the scheduled events, for example to reward or punish class behaviour. Announce it aloud as you press.
One-page facilitator run sheet and a sheet of nation quick-cards to hand to teams.
Teams read their result screens aloud. Type team name and GDP, then reveal.
Follow the classic structure: first feelings and comparisons, then realism, then theory. Ten to fifteen minutes turns the noise into learning.
Ask a high-income and a low-income team in turn. Frustration, power and dependency usually surface immediately.
Using your productivity table, what was your opportunity cost of one Circle in Triangles? Did you specialise where that cost was lowest?
Comparative advantage (Ricardo, 1817) ยท links to the Bel Canto KoreaโThailand exercise.
If the autarky opening was on, every result screen shows GDP at the moment borders opened. Who gained most from trade, in absolute and in percentage terms?
Gains from trade ยท consumption beyond the PPF.
Raw materials versus physical and human capital. Which real economies resemble each nation? The country dossiers name archetypes to anchor the discussion.
Factor endowments (HeckscherโOhlin): nations export what uses their abundant factor intensively.
What did a pair of scissors cost in sheets of paper at minute five versus minute fifteen? Why did that ratio move?
Terms of trade ยท commodity dependence.
Any broken deals or cartels? What would enforceable contracts, a court, or a WTO-style referee have changed?
Institutions ยท GATT/WTO ยท trade policy.
A nation can be worse at everything and still gain from trade, if it specialises where its opportunity cost is lowest. Have a student state it, then test it against the session's data.
Which real-world events mirror the glut, the boom and the rally? What protects a one-good economy?
Trade raised total output, but not everyone equally. What can policy (aid, technology transfer, tariffs, subsidies) do about it, and at what cost?
Send students to the in-app Academy for the full write-ups.
Academy
Tap the rivets in order ยท 3 misses scraps the batch
Advantage Lab
Allocate workers between two goods in two economies and watch opportunity cost, absolute and comparative advantage, and the gains from specialisation emerge. Built around two classic worked examples.
Each nation's frontier, its current point, and the combined economy. Specialisation pushes the world point beyond the summed autarky frontier.
Short-run comparative advantage depends only on productivity. In the long run, unit labour cost (wage รท productivity) decides where production actually locates. Slide the relative wage and watch which plant is cheapest per unit.
Assessment
Questions are drawn at random from a bank spanning the theory of trade, opportunity cost, factor endowments, terms of trade and policy. Each attempt is a fresh randomised set, mirroring a Blackboard-style pool. Full worked explanations follow every question.
Game 2 ยท National Auction
Governments bid live against one another for the national priorities that matter most. Every dollar spent on one priority is a dollar not spent on another. Win the lots you value, then defend what you gave up. Points, not spending, decide the winner.
Change anything at any time. The game adapts instantly.
Facilitator view: project this screen. Teams bid from the floor and you record every raise.
Strategy huddle
Decide which lots matter most, what each is worth to you, and the maximum you will pay. Write down why: you will be asked to defend it.
The auction house
National Auction ยท debrief
Each country defends its portfolio. Award justification points for the sharpest reasoning, not the biggest spend. Ten to fifteen minutes here is where the economics lands.
Lot points ยท justification ยท thrift
National Auction ยท live
Waiting for your instructor to open a lotโฆ
Origins, credits & acknowledgements
Good teaching games have long lineages. Both games here stand on the work of others, and this page records that debt precisely: who created the originals, how they worked, what is original to this software, and how it is licensed.