Economics real world examples and extension material

The objective

The aim of this section of the textbook is to develop student knowledge and understanding of real-world examples which are a crucial part of Higher Level and Standard Level Paper 1. The case examples in this section draw on economic current real-world examples that are topical and interesting.

This section also allows students to take different aspects of the IB Economics course, and develop them further and fully explore economic theories, ideas and issues. Whilst the aim of the extension material is to broaden and enrich students their improved understanding of the material in the course will also help their examination performance. The extension material can also be used to support students who are looking to do Economics and related subjects at University.

Direct links to the pages in this section can be accessed at:

Opportunity cost and production possibility curves

A potential military conflict in Ukraine will come with costs for all those, directly and indirectly, affected by a war situation. To examine the costs involved in a war, it is interesting to examine...

The sharing economy

This page can be used as an extension exercise on the role of government intervention within an economy.This lesson is an extension activity on the marketplace and examines a relatively new market that...

Demand theory

The last week of November is one of the most significant periods in the year for retail spending. Black Friday (the Friday following the Thanksgiving holiday) is a calendar date that is synonymous with...

The price mechanism

The world price of natural gas has increased from $2.50 per unit to $5.60 per unit over the last 12 months – an increase of 124%. Like a price ‘spike’ in most markets, the cause of the increase...

Market demand and supply

Like so many goods in this inflationary period, there has been a significant increase in the price of luxury items over the last 12 months. An example of this is Champagne which has increased in price...

Demerit goods

Plenty of politicians have their eyes on the harmful consequences of online gaming. There are stories of gamers playing for such continuously long time periods they wear diapers to avoid pauses in play....

Market failure and climate change

The weight of expectation hangs heavily on world leaders as they meet for the global climate summit in Glasgow this week. Reaching an agreement that limits global warming to 1.5 degrees is a challenging...

Market power

On January 4 2022 Apply became the first business in the world to be worth $3 trillion. If Apple were a country its value would put it just behind Germany which is the world’s fourth-biggest economy....

Applying game theory

The American economist John Nash is a central figure in the application of Game Theory in Economics. In 1994 he won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his PhD thesis which set out the definition and properties...