IB Economics HL study plan

Define scarcity, choice, and opportunity cost, and compute opportunity cost from a production possibility curve table with at least 90% accuracy.

Draw and label PPC diagrams showing shifts, movements along the curve, and inefficiency, then explain each in one paragraph.

Construct demand and supply diagrams from given schedules and identify equilibrium price and quantity numerically.

Distinguish movements along versus shifts of demand and supply curves across 10 scenarios without error.

Calculate price elasticity of demand, income elasticity, cross elasticity, and price elasticity of supply using the standard formulas, showing all working.

Interpret elasticity coefficients to classify goods as normal, inferior, substitutes, complements, or luxury, and link each to revenue implications.

Diagram and evaluate indirect taxes, subsidies, price ceilings, and price floors, identifying welfare loss and stakeholder effects.

Explain market failure sources (negative and positive externalities, demerit and merit goods, common access resources, asymmetric information) with one real example each.

Calculate and graph total, average, and marginal cost and revenue, including the shapes of short-run cost curves.

Explain the law of diminishing returns and derive short-run cost curves from a production table.

Compare perfect competition, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and monopoly on profit maximisation, efficiency, and barriers to entry.

Evaluate government responses to monopoly power (regulation, antitrust, nationalisation) using a diagram-based argument.

Analyse HL firm extensions: revenue curves under imperfect competition, game theory payoff matrices, and contestable markets.

Calculate and interpret the four-firm concentration ratio and explain its limitations.

Explain the Phillips curve short-run and long-run trade-off and distinguish monetarist from Keynesian interpretations.

Derive and interpret the Laffer curve and evaluate supply-side policy claims.

Define and calculate GDP, GNP, nominal versus real output, and the GDP deflator from given data.

Diagram AD/AS in short-run and long-run forms and trace the transmission mechanism of a demand shock to output and price level.

Evaluate fiscal policy (expansionary and contractionary) including automatic stabilisers, crowding out, and multiplier effects.

Evaluate monetary policy tools and explain central bank independence, with reference to a real policy rate decision.

Distinguish demand-pull from cost-push inflation and classify causes of unemployment (frictional, structural, cyclical, seasonal).

Explain the inflation-unemployment relationship and evaluate the natural rate hypothesis using current data.

Compare Keynesian and monetarist/neoclassical views on the role of government in stabilisation.

Explain HL growth models (Harrod-Domar, Solow, endogenous growth) and evaluate their policy implications.

Analyse income and wealth inequality using the Lorenz curve and Gini coefficient.

Explain comparative advantage and calculate opportunity cost ratios to determine gains from trade.

Diagram and evaluate tariffs, quotas, and subsidies, identifying effects on consumers, producers, government, and welfare.

Explain exchange rate determination (floating and fixed) and analyse the effects of appreciation and depreciation.

Construct and interpret the balance of payments accounts, distinguishing current, capital, and financial accounts.

Compare types of economic integration (free trade area, customs union, common market, monetary union) with one example each.

Distinguish economic growth from development and apply the multidimensional poverty index and SDG framework to a named country.

Evaluate barriers to development (institutional, human capital, infrastructure, debt) and strategies (import substitution, export promotion, FDI, microfinance).

Evaluate the role and limitations of aid and debt relief, including conditionality and moral hazard.

Select three real news articles and draft IA commentary structures, applying one diagram and one evaluation per commentary.