Archive for the 'IB Eco Introduction' Category

Introduction to Economics Part 2 – Production Possibility Frontiers (or PPFs)

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

  [Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WikiAbb1_1.JPG] These can sometimes be referred to as Production Possibility Curves (PPCs), to reflect their shape. Frontier is a better word to use … you will need to think about what it is that the term frontier implies. This session assumes you have a basic knowledge of PPFs already and points you to [...]

Introduction to Economics Part 1

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

In this section we consider the following concepts as outlined in the IB Economics Syllabus [© International Baccalaureate Organization, 2003] : Scarcity • factors of production: land, labour, capital and management/entrepreneurship • payments to factors of production: rent, wages, interest, profit (we cover this later on in the course) Choice • utility: basic definition • [...]

Introduction to Economics Part 3 – Utility and Rational Versus Irrational Behaviour

Monday, August 23rd, 2010

Money can help us place a value on things, but the underlying value of things can be explained by the concept of utility. This podcast explains: Econs for the iPod – Utility We are now beginning to consider some of the fundamental assumptions which are central to the ‘science’ of Economics. We should already understand [...]

Transition Economies

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

[Source: flickr.com Image by sludgegulper Some rights reserved] According to the International Monetary Fund (2000) the following economies can be categorised as making the transition from command to free market economies in recent history. Transition economies in Europe and the former Soviet Union CEE Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, FYR Macedonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic, [...]

Market Economies

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

   [Source: flickr.com Image by Concrete Forms Some rights reserved] All economies need to answer the three basic questions which result from the fact of scarcity: What to produce How to produce For whom to produce For a market economy, we need to research the following: a) How it works – how does it answer the [...]

Command (or Planned) Economies

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

Image by bobster855 (flickr.com Some rights reserved ) All economies need to answer the three basic questions which result from the fact of scarcity: What to produce How to produce For whom to produce For a planned economy, we need to research the following: a) How it works – how does it answer the three [...]