Grade 12 · printable course

Economics: Scarcity, Markets, and Decisions

Grade 12 · 326 pages · 40 lessons · PDF, print at home

A one-semester survey of economic reasoning for graduating seniors: how individuals, firms, markets, and governments respond to scarcity. Students build a toolkit of microeconomic reasoning (opportunity cost, supply and demand, market structure), apply it to macroeconomic questions (growth, unemployment, inflation, fiscal and monetary policy), and finish by examining global trade and development through the same lens. Throughout, the course distinguishes what the mainstream economic consensus finds well-supported from questions that remain genuinely contested and value-laden, and asks students to argue the latter with evidence rather than assertion. Aligned to C3 Framework economics indicators and CCSS literacy/math standards.

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Every unit and lesson in this book, in order. The same lessons are taught online at lettersanddevotion.com, so a family can move between paper and screen.

Economics: Scarcity, Markets, and Decisions

40 lessons · try a lesson online free

Unit 1: Scarcity, Choice, and Opportunity Cost9 lessons
  1. 1.The distinction between scarcity and shortage
  2. 2.Opportunity cost as the single best forgone alternative
  3. 3.Opportunity cost versus monetary/accounting cost
  4. 4.The production possibilities curve as a graphical model of trade-offs under scarcity
  5. 5.Interpretation of PPC position, shifts, and curvature as indicators of efficiency, growth, and increasing opportunity cost
  6. 6.The sunk cost fallacy as a departure from rational marginal decision-making
  7. 7.Marginal analysis (MB = MC decision rule)
  8. 8.Opportunity-cost analysis applied to a self-selected, unmodeled decision
  9. 9.Absolute advantage versus comparative advantage (conceptual, non-numeric-trade-gains version)
Unit 2: Markets: Supply, Demand, and the Price System11 lessons
  1. 10.The determinants of supply and demand and their effect on curve position
  2. 11.The distinction between shifts and movements along a curve
  3. 12.Market equilibrium and the mechanism (surplus/shortage pressure) that drives price toward it
  4. 13.The price elasticity of demand formula and elasticity classification
  5. 14.The determinants of elasticity (availability of substitutes, necessity vs. luxury, budget share, time horizon)
  6. 15.The perfect competition and monopoly market structure models
  7. 16.Market structure classification applied to an unfamiliar industry
  8. 17.Negative externalities and the private-cost/social-cost gap
  9. 18.The distinction between an equilibrium shift and a market failure
  10. 19.Price ceilings and price floors and their effect on market clearing
  11. 20.The general conditions under which price controls bind and distort a market
Unit 3: The Macroeconomy: Growth, Unemployment, Inflation, and Policy10 lessons
  1. 21.The real GDP calculation using a price deflator
  2. 22.The three types of unemployment (frictional, structural, cyclical)
  3. 23.Boundary cases between structural and cyclical unemployment
  4. 24.The relationship between an aggregate measure (GDP) and its underlying distribution
  5. 25.Reconciling conflicting aggregate economic indicators with a distributional/equity question
  6. 26.The distinction between fiscal policy authority and monetary policy authority
  7. 27.The direction (expansionary/contractionary) and category of an unfamiliar policy action
  8. 28.The unemployment-inflation policy trade-off under a condition instruction did not directly model
  9. 29.Definitions of fiscal policy and monetary policy and one tool for each
  10. 30.The distinction between empirical claims and value trade-offs in economic argument
Unit 4: Trade, Globalization, and Development10 lessons
  1. 31.Opportunity cost as the basis for comparative advantage in a two-country, two-good numeric model
  2. 32.The distinction between absolute advantage and comparative advantage as the basis for mutually beneficial trade
  3. 33.Terms of trade as bounded by each country's domestic opportunity costs
  4. 34.The tariff wedge on a domestic supply-and-demand diagram and its distribution across consumers, producers, and government
  5. 35.Tariffs, quotas, and trade agreements as distinct trade-policy tools
  6. 36.The domestic distribution of gains and losses from a real trade or development event
  7. 37.The distinction between empirical claims and values trade-offs in trade and development policy argument
  8. 38.Global public goods and cross-border externalities as market failure at the international scale
  9. 39.A structured argumentative position on a contested trade/development policy question, evidenced and separated by claim type
  10. 40.Comparative advantage and macro-aggregate reasoning applied jointly to unseen data

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