Economics

Course summary

Theme 1: Markets and business behaviour. Topics include scarcity and choice, the basic economic problem, opportunity cost, specialisation and trade, supply and demand, market failure and government intervention. Theme 2: The national and global economy. Topics include economic growth, inflation, unemployment and international trade. This part of the course also considers the effectiveness of different government policies for example interest rates, taxation and government spending. Theme 3: Business behaviour and the labour market. Topics include how competitive markets work, imperfect markets, for example monopoly and oligopoly, and the Labour market. Theme 4: Global perspective. Topics include the theory of trade, inequality, development, the role of the financial sector and the role of the state