Key Stage 5
Year 12
Intent
Students will be able to discuss how well microeconomic theories (market models) explain the behaviour of economic agents in the real world. Students will learn how to use and interpret quantitative evidence to justify economic decisions as well as to critically reflect on the limitations of data, whilst considering the moral, ethical and sustainability issues that arise as a result of economic activity.
Learning Journey
Nature of Economics & Demand
Core Knowledge and Skills
- Economic methodology
- Positive and normative
- The economic problem
- PPFs (diagram skills)
- Consumer behaviour
- Specialisation, division of labour and exchange
- Demand (diagram skills)
- Ped (maths skills)
- Shifts in demand
- Yed (maths skills)
-
Xed (maths skills)
Enriched Knowledge
- Value Judgements (equity v efficiency)
- Role in Policy Making
- Moral and Political Judgements
Key Language
- Social science
- Positive and normative statements
- Factors of production
- Opportunity cost
- Efficiency
- Equity
- Specialisation
- Division of Labour
- Contractions and extensions
- Elastic and inelastic
- Normal and inferior goods
- Substitutes and complements
Supply, Equilibrium Price Determination and Consumer and Producer Surplus
Core Knowledge and Skills
- Supply (diagram skills)
- PES (maths skills)
- Shifts in supply
- Price determination
- Supply and demand shifts (diagram skills)
- Market interrelationships
- Consumer and producer surplus (diagram skills)
- Changes in consumer and producer surplus
Enriched Knowledge
- Welfare economics – Efficiency v equality
Key Language
- Profit incentive
- Elastic and inelastic
- Price mechanism
- Excess supply and demand
- Joint, competing, composite and derived
- Surplus
Market Failure and Government Intervention
Core Knowledge and Skills
- Externalities (+/-) (diagram skills)
- Public goods
- Information gaps
- Merit and demerit goods
- Monopoly power
- Factor immobility
- Inequitable distribution
- Partial and complete failure
- Interventions (taxes, subsidies, Regs, permits, price controls) (diagram skills)
Enriched Knowledge
- Value judgements
- Equality v equity
Key Language
- External costs and benefits
- Deadweight welfare loss
- Social equilibrium
- Non-excludable, non-rival and free-rider problem
- Asymmetric information
- Occupational and geographical immobility
- Income and wealth
- Progressive taxes
- Government spending
Government Failure, Revenue/costs/profit, Efficiency and Business Growth
Core Knowledge and Skills
- Government failure
- Revenue (diagram skills)
- Short and long-ruin costs (diagram skills)
- Profit maximization
- Revenue maximization
- Sales maximization
- Profit satisficing
- Divorce of ownership and control
Enriched Knowledge
- Value judgements
- Moral and political judgements
Key Language
- Price distortion
- Unintended consequences
- Administrative costs
- Average, total, marginal revenue
- Average, total and marginal costs (fixed and variable)
- Diminishing marginal returns
- Economies and diseconomies of scale
- Minimum efficient scale
- Returns to scale
Market Structures, Technology and Regulation and Competition Policy
Core Knowledge and Skills
- Monopoly (diagram skills)
- Perfect competition (diagram skills)
- Monopolistic competition (diagram skills)
- Oligopoly
- Contestability
- Technological change
- Regulation and competition policy
Enriched Knowledge
- Private v public ownership
Key Language
- Barriers to entry
- Natural monopoly
- Price discrimination
- Collusion
- Price leadership and agreement
- Non-price competition
- Kinked demand curve
- Sunk costs
- Hit-and-run competition
- Creative destruction
- Regulatory capture
- Deregulation and privatization
- Competitive tendering
- Nationalisation
Labour Markets
Core Knowledge and Skills
- Labour market demand and supply (diagram skills)
- Labour market elasticities
- Labour market shifts (diagram skills)
- Monopsony (diagram skills)
- Wage discrimination
- Poverty
- Inequality
Enriched Knowledge
- Justifying wage discrimination
- Moral and political judgements
Key Language
- Derived demand
- Marginal revenue product
- Productivity
- Non-pecuniary
- Trade unions
- Max and min wages
- Wage differentials
- Wage discrimination (non-economic)
- Absolute and relative poverty
- Infrastructure
- Lorenz curve
- Gini coefficient
- Assortative mating
- R>g hypothesis
Year 13
Intent
Students will learn how the macroeconomy functions on both a domestic and global level and develop an understanding of the objectives, limitations and conflicts of macroeconomic policies. They will learn to appreciate the importance and impact of international trade, globalisation and the role of financial markets. Students are encouraged to consider moral, ethical and sustainability issues that arise as a result of economic activity.
Learning Journey
Macroeconomic Models and Government Objectives
Core Knowledge and Skills
- Circular Flow of Income
- Aggregate demand and shifts in AD (diagram skills)
- Aggregate supply and shifts in AS
- Exchange rates (diagram skills)
- Labour markets (diagram skills)
- Inflation and deflation (maths skills)
- Growth (maths skills)
- Unemployment
- Balance of payments
- Public finances
- Inequality
- Environment
Enriched Knowledge
- Neo-classical v Keynes
- Borrowing and debt
- Moral and political judgements
Key language
- Income = Expenditure = output
- Real GDP
- Injections and leakages
- C+I+G+(X-M)
- PPP
- Imports and exports
- Appreciation and depreciation
- Deficit and surplus
- Demand-pull and cost-push
- Nominal v real
- CPI
- Structural, cyclical, real-wage, frictional, seasonal unemployment
- Economically active v inactive
- Current account v financial and capital account
The Business Cycle and Policies and The Global Economy
Core Knowledge and Skills
- The Business Cycle (diagram skills)
- Fiscal policy
- Monetary policy
- Supply side policy
- Specialisation and Trade (diagram skills)
- Globalisation
- Restrictions on Free Trade
- Trading blocs
Enriched Knowledge
- Moral and political judgements
Key language
- Recession
- Output gaps
- Boom and bust
- Asset price bubbles
- Speculation
- Contractionary and expansionary policy
- VAT, income tax and corporation tax
- Crowding out
- Base interest rate
- Quantitative easing
- Quantity theory of money
- Absolute and comparative advantage
The Global Economy 2 & Emerging and Developing Economies
Core Knowledge and Skills
- WTO
- Patterns of trade
- Balance of Payments 2
- Exchange rates 2
- Exchange rate systems
- International competitiveness
- Measures of development
Enriched Knowledge
- Liberalised markets
- Ruthless v sustainable growth
- Moral and political judgements
Key Language
- Trade imbalances
- Hot money flows
- FDI
- Expenditure switching and reducing policies
- Marshall-Lerner
- J-Curve
- Competitive depreciation
- Fixed v floating exchange rate systems
- Unit labour costs
- HDI and MPI
Emerging and Developing Economies 2, Financial Sector and Role of State
Core Knowledge
- Barriers to development
- The World Bank, IMF and NGOs
- Role of financial markets
- Unconventional monetary policy
- Market failure in financial sector
- Role of central banks
- Taxation
- Public sector finances
- The Phillips curve
Enriched Knowledge
- Debt relief
Key Language
- Trade disputes
- Rounds of talks
- Savings gaps
- Property rights
- Infant industries
- Primary product dependency
- Narrow and broad money
- Debt v Equity
- Commercial v investment
- Bonds
- Balance sheets
- Forward guidance and Funding for Lending
- Moral hazard
- Systemic risk
- Capital and current expenditure
- Cyclical v structural deficits
- Natural Rate of Unemployment
Policies in a global context
Core Knowledge and Skills
- The policy toolkit
- The policies in a global context
Enriched Knowledge
- Global inequality - Moral and political judgements
Key Language
- Automatic stabilisers
- Discretionary fiscal policy
- Direct controls
- Transfer pricing
- External shocks
- Financial Crisis
- Great Depression
Summer Examinations in May/June