Economics, 14–17 years — 20 topics · MyLeoNes™ Kuks
20 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.
In this section
Keep exploring
Other languages
Loading MyLeoNes™…