All candidates study these AS Level topics

a) Scarcity, choice and opportunity cost

• the fundamental economic problem
• the meaning of scarcity and the inevitability of choices at all levels (individual, firms, governments)
• the basic questions of what will be produced, how and for whom
• the meaning of the term, ‘ceteris paribus’
• the margin and decision making at the margin
• short run, long run, very long run

b) Positive and normative statements

• the distinction between facts and value judgements

c) Factors of production

• the rewards to the factors of production: land, labour, capital and enterprise
• specialisation and division of labour

d) Resource allocation in different economic systems and issues of transition

• decision making in market, planned and mixed economies
• the role of the factor enterprise in a modern economy

e) Production possibility curves

• shape and shifts of the curve
• constant and increasing opportunity costs

f) Money

• functions and characteristics in a modern economy
• barter, cash and bank deposits, cheques, near money, liquidity

g) Classification of goods and services • free goods, private goods (economic goods) and public goods

• merit goods and demerit goods as the outcome of imperfect information by consumers.