Economics, 14–17 years — 29 topics · MyLeoNes™ Kuks
29 economics topics written for 14–17 years — not a older text simplified. In teaching order, each a deck of five cards: the idea, why it exists, a worked example, the common trap and where you meet it.
Economics · 14–17 years
Scarcity and opportunity cost
Every choice uses resources that could have gone somewhere else. Opportunity cost helps compare what we choose with the best option we leave behind.
Supply, demand and prices
Prices often change when buyers want more or sellers offer less. Supply and demand give us a way to reason about those changes without pretending that one cause explains every market.
Inflation and purchasing power
Inflation is a broad rise in prices, so the same money buys less than before. Separating price changes from changes in purchasing power makes news and personal budgets easier to understand.
Compound interest and credit
Interest is the price of using someone else’s money, or the reward for letting others use yours. Compound growth makes time important because interest can earn interest too.
Taxes and public services
How governments collect money and turn part of it into things people share, such as schools, roads and hospitals.
GDP and living standards
What GDP measures, why economists use it, and why a bigger economy does not automatically mean that everyone is better off.
Unemployment
How unemployment is measured, why people can be without work even when they want a job, and what the rate tells us.
Externalities
What happens when a choice affects people who are not part of the buying or selling decision.
Comparative advantage and trade
Why two people or countries can both gain by specialising, even when one is better at making everything.
Market power and competition
Why a seller with few rivals can influence prices, choices and rules more than a seller facing many competitors.
Inequality and redistribution
How income and wealth can be distributed unevenly, and how taxes and public support can change the result.
How central banks steer the economy
How an institution changes borrowing conditions to influence spending, saving, prices and employment.
Public goods and free-riding
Why some useful things are hard to sell to each person separately, and why people may wait for others to pay.
Fiscal policy and budget deficits
How governments use spending and taxes to influence the economy, and what it means when they spend more than they receive.
Exchange rates
How the value of one currency is expressed in another, and why that changes the prices of travel, imports and exports.
Productivity
Why producing more with the same time or materials can raise incomes, and why simply working longer is not the same thing.
Human capital
Skills, knowledge and health can make people more capable of creating value. Human capital helps explain why education and training are economic investments, not only personal achievements.
Business cycles
Economic activity does not always move upwards smoothly. Business cycles describe repeated rises and falls in production, jobs and spending, helping explain why an economy can slow down even when its long-term capacity is growing.
Information asymmetry
In many exchanges, one side knows more than the other. This can change prices, trust and behaviour, and may make a useful market work badly unless people find ways to share information or build guarantees.
Behavioural economics
People make economic choices with limited time, attention and self-control. Behavioural economics studies how real decisions differ from the perfectly calculating person assumed in simple models, without saying that people are foolish.
Marginal thinking
Marginal thinking asks what one extra unit costs and brings. It helps you compare the next step, rather than treating every choice as all-or-nothing.
Risk and diversification
Risk is not just the chance of losing everything; it is uncertainty about outcomes. Diversification can reduce some risks by avoiding dependence on one investment, customer or source of income.
Economic growth
Economic growth means an economy can produce more goods and services over time. It can raise incomes and possibilities, but its quality depends on who benefits and what happens to resources and the environment.
Game theory and strategic choice
Some choices depend on what other people are likely to do. Game theory maps these situations, showing why individually sensible actions can produce a poor result for everyone.
Elasticity: how strongly quantity reacts
Elasticity measures how much buying or selling changes when a price, income or another condition changes. It helps explain why the same price rise affects different products and people differently.
Price controls and shortages
A law can put a maximum or minimum on a price, but it cannot make goods appear or disappear. This topic follows what happens when a legal price is kept away from the level at which buyers and sellers would normally meet.
How commercial banks create money
Most money used in daily payments is not notes in a wallet. Commercial banks create deposit money when they make loans, while the banking system must still manage withdrawals, payments and the risk that borrowers cannot repay.
Present value: comparing money across time
Money received later is not directly comparable with money received today. Present value translates future amounts into today’s terms by asking what return you could earn while waiting.
The circular flow of income
The circular-flow model shows how households, firms, banks and the public sector are linked by flows of work, goods, money and saving. It is a map for seeing connections, not a complete picture of every economy.
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