Posts tagged Course Content
Price Elasticity of Demand
Oct 30th
Introductory Videos
Video: Price Elasticity of Demand – part 1 by pajholden
Video: Price Elasticity of Demand – part 1 by pajholden
Interactive Tutorials
Economics Interactive Tutorial by Samuel Baker (Univ of Carolina)
Elasticity — A Quantitative Approach by Samuel Baker (Univ of Carolina)
The Market System – Part 1 on biz/ed – contains section on PED towards end
Price elasticity of demand and basic application in Excel by Tushar Mehta
The following videos deal with the important concept of how price elasticity of demand relates to total revenue. They cover similar ground so you may not feel the need to watch all of them, but they do take different approaches in presentation.
Price Elasticity & Total Revenue by BrynJonesOnline
Total Revenue and Elasticity by ElmagicRonaldo
Elasticity and Revenue by jodiecongirl
Price Elasticity of Demand (PED) – own price elasticity by economicsfun
Good real life example on the determinants (factors affecting) Price Elasticity of Demand … ‘gasoline’ (or petrol):
In Summary
Price Elasticity: From Tires to Toothpicks (Econedlink)
Price Elasticity of Demand (tutor2u)
Price Elasticity of Demand
(Welker’s Wikinomics)
Finally, before moving on to Price Elasticity of Supply, this 15 minute video explaining an unusual ‘spike’ in gas prices in the US in 2002, is excellent and highly recommended for applying the theory to a real life example (the latter part gets a little bit tricky, but still recommended for IGCSE and IB students):
Output– Definitions of GDP
Oct 28th
These mjmfoodie videos are very useful for understanding the concepts of GDP, real GDP (as opposed to nominal/money GDP) and growth.
A Song about Elasticity
Oct 28th
Some people have a lot of time on their hands, but we should sometimes be grateful for that … this song summing up the different elasticities is worth a listen (you never know, it might even help you revise this particular topic …)
Cross Price Elasticity and Income Elasticity
Oct 25th
1) Cross Price Elasticity of Demand
A video from pajholden (click on the image below – this video can’t be embedded).
Image: 
Some rights reserved by avlxyz
2) Income Elasticity of Demand
A video from pajholden (click on the image below – this video can’t be embedded).
Image: Some rights reserved by AngelalalaChan
3) Both XED (Cross Price Elasticity of Demand) and YED (Income Elasticity of Demand)
Introduction to Economics Part 1
Aug 23rd
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
• opportunity cost
• free and economic goods’
What do we mean by scarcity? First we need to know what we mean by needs and wants. These are easy concepts to understand …
Need more on this? …
Having watched the clips, make sure you can define needs and wants. It is always good to have examples as well as definitions.
Now we move on …
This excellent YouTube clip gives us an animated explanation of the concept of scarcity, while referring to Labo[u]r, Raw Materials and Capital. We need to be able to define these three things. Note that Raw Materials is often referred to as Land within Economics.
It is important to be able to give definitions for these three resources (or ‘factors of production’) – land, labour and capital. You should also be able to define a fourth – entrepreneurship (commonly referred to as enterprise’). Use this next YouTube clip to check your understanding of these:
This next YouTube clip develops the concept of scarcity and concentrates on how scarcity means that choices have to be made – this is essentially what economics is all about. (Note – it introduces some ideas that we will return to in more detail in a later section). Watch it and use it to define and give examples of the main concepts which are referred to as such as wants, economic goods, free goods.
The summary below helps us understand the above ideas, and leads us onto the concept of Opportunity Cost.
[Taken from http://www.businessstudiesonline.co.uk]
So what is Opportunity Cost?
Opportunity Cost – "the value of the next best alternative forgone as the result of making a decision" [see wikipedia for fuller information]
So what do we mean by ‘next best’? This YouTube clip exemplifies:
This light-hearted YouTube clip demonstrates that it need not be about money, but that cost in this sense can be measured in time:
This YouTube video underlines the concept even further, and considers among other things, the opportunity cost of surfing the web.
It is clear that we have to be able to value the things that we choose to do/make/consume and the things we choose to forego. The money value of an opportunity cost can actually get very complicated. Try this activity:
You can see from this interactive image below that we have explored two of the basic economic principles in this section:
The 6 Core Economic Principles
(thanks to http://www.kidseconposters.com)
By the end of this section you should be able to define and illustrate with examples the following key phrases:
Introduction to Economics Part 3 – Utility and Rational Versus Irrational Behaviour
Aug 23rd
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:
We are now beginning to consider some of the fundamental assumptions which are central to the ‘science’ of Economics. We should already understand that utility is a key idea, yet also a very vague term when one we consider how subjective this idea is.
Another key assumption of mainstream Economics is that people behave in a rational way. Remember the 6 Principles:
The 6 Core Economic Principles
(thanks to http://www.kidseconposters.com)
Look at principle 3. This assumes rational responses to a given situation.
Yet is this always the case?
The excellent TED Talks website has a number of interesting presentations that argue that we as humans do not always behave rationally. These arguments come from various connected disciplines (or subjects) such as behavioural economics and pyschology. It is worth knowing these more recent theories which seem to contradict the long standing assumption that we behave rationally. Note, if you study Theory of Knowledge, these arguments are really useful for when you study Reason as a Way of Knowing but also the Human Sciences as an area of Knowledge.
Suggested learning activity, if you are studying as part of a group. Divide yourselves up so that you take one of the following videos each (or as pairs, threes, whatever). Watch your chosen video and prepare a short summary (max 300 words) of the messages which are relevant to your studies of Economics, and be prepared to share your summary with the others in your group.
Note – the title above each video embedded below gives a direct link to the video. From the direct link you could download each video to your iPod / iPhone, for example.
Dan Ariely asks, Are we in control of our own decisions?
Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory
Dan Ariely on our buggy moral code
Laurie Santos: A monkey economy as irrational as ours
Dan Gilbert on our mistaken expectations
Explaining Population Distribution
Aug 26th
We first need to recap our understanding of population distribution. Visit this page:
Quick Population Distribution Quiz
And we also need to recap our understanding of the phrase population density:
Thanks to http://www.geography.learnontheinternet.co.uk for both of these quizzes.
By the end of this section we will have developed a table to illustrate the different factors affecting population density, with examples and images. Here is a preview:
