As the roll call commences, conducted by arguably one of the dullest high school economics teachers ever, Simone, a classmate, answers: “Um, he’s sick. My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going out with a girl who saw Ferris. … I guess it’s pretty serious.”

The teacher thanks Simone and moves on to the next person on the list before engaging – too strong a word – the class in economics.

The 1986 movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off celebrated its fortieth anniversary on June 11. In South Africa, it was released in December. The movie had a major impact on my life, and I have even taken a day’s leave to embark on my own adventure.

That was not the sole impact at the time; I must admit that, as a first-year economics student, two references passed me by: the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act and the Laffer Curve. If you have not heard of both, you need to take remedial action: either employ your favourite search engine or take a delightful one-hour, 43-minute journey.

At around the seven-minute mark and running until about the nine-minute mark, you will join the economics class, with the teacher starting: “In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the . . . Anyone? Anyone? . . . the Great Depression, passed the . . . Anyone? Anyone? The tariff Bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered? . . . raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the US sank deeper into the Great Depression.

“Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before? The Laffer Curve. Anyone know what this says? It says that at this point on the revenue curve, you will get exactly the same amount of revenue as at this point. This is very controversial. Does anyone know what Vice President Bush called this in 1980? Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. Voodoo economics.”

You will be hard-pressed to keep a straight face when you view Ben Stein’s infamously dull economics class, which was entirely improvised, yet remains as relevant now as it was then. In 2014, the film was selected for preservation in the US National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

“You’re still here? It’s over. Go home, go,” Ferris speaks into the camera in the post-credit scene. Not done quite yet?

Well, let’s briefly touch on The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, or the Tariff Act, of 1930 (enacted on June 17 of that year), which was a highly protectionist US piece of legislation that raised customs duties on more than 20 000 foreign goods. Signed into law by US President Herbert Hoover, it was intended to protect US farmers and industries as the Great Depression began. Does this ring a bell? It shares an ‘America First’ philosophy with the sweeping trade agenda and extensive use of tariffs by President Donald Trump to protect domestic industries, but it differs significantly in its implementation and scale.

Fast-forward to December 1974. Have you noted the repetition of June and December? In December 1974, Arthur Laffer sketched his famous curve on a restaurant napkin. Nowadays, the Laffer Curve is part of most economics textbooks and an essential argument in tax debates.

The Laffer Curve postulates that if tax rates are increased above a certain level, then tax revenues can actually fall because higher tax rates discourage people from working. Sounds familiar? In fact, cutting taxes could lead to higher tax revenues. Interestingly, the fourteenth-century Arab scholar Ibn Khaldun conceptualised the core principles of the Laffer Curve in his magnum opus, The Muqaddimah, noting that “at the end of the dynasty, taxation yields a small revenue from large assessments because excessive taxation destroys the incentive to work”.

The final word to Ferris: “Yep. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”