Did you participate in the third edition of Board Games Day this week end in Place D’Armes? Did you know that  besides the fun part of playing at these games you also can educate your children? Indeed, as parents we always try to find and use new and inventive ways to educate our children and have some fun at the same time.  

Through this article, I would like to recommend the 3 best board games for you and your children to learn about economics. We have selected a range of board games and each one teaches you about different aspects of economics while you play. Let's get started …

Monopoly

Although a lot of people dislike this game and consider it to be boring, Monopoly is the cornerstone of these board games as it covers a little of everything. First, you get to handle cash, which helps children manage their money as they soon discover that investing everything and not leaving anything for contingencies does not usually end well.

It also lets us better understand the concept of opportunity cost. As resources are limited, we have to choose which streets to buy with care and, above all, decide on which streets to build, as while it is cheaper in some streets to buy houses or even a hotel, in others the return on our investment (what the other players pay for landing on our property) is much greater.

The downside to Monopoly is that, for reasons of chance, nobody gains a monopoly, the streets are shared among all of the players (to build on the streets, the player needs to have the neighbouring properties of the same colour) and the game never ends. Nevertheless, in this case, another aspect of economics comes into play: negotiating.

In fact, Monopoly would not be as much fun without negotiations between players to gain a longed-for (mini) monopoly over a street and to be able to build. If you are not a smart negotiator and you let yourself be won over by a large amount of money for a key property, you can quickly lose the game. These mistakes teach us to value our assets and to try to reach an agreement that is beneficial over the long term.

Risk

You may be asking yourself why a military strategy game is in a selection of games related to economics, you will soon see why. Risk is a game in which the players quickly learn about opportunity cost.

In this game, resources are limited. At the start of the game, we have a certain number of battalions. Whenever it is our turn, we receive a small number of battalions based on the territories that we own.

It is therefore important to manage our resources and choose which territories we attack carefully. Otherwise, we end up 'investing' a lot of troops in one territory that is not strategically valuable or does not provide us with more battalions when our turn comes round.

Risk also offers interesting lessons in game theory, as during the game, tacit agreements between players with a common goal have a big impact, as does the player who lets the others wage bloody battles while he pretends to look confused and then goes on to sweep everyone away like Attila the Hun in Europe.

Catan

Catan, or The Settlers of Catan, is a resource management game in which the players compete to dominate a board that changes from one game to the next. The aim of the game is to build towns, cities and roads in return for points. The player who is the first to reach ten points wins.

It is a game in which managing scarce resources, negotiating, and building cities and roads strategically are essential. There is an element of luck but not as much as in other games such as Monopoly, in which luck with the dice in the first few rounds has a big impact on the rest of the game.