OCG - Economics

There are no prerequisites for this course.

Standard ECON-1:    The student will demonstrate an understanding of how scarcity and choice impact the decisions of families, businesses, communities, and nations.

• ECON-1.1 Explain that the practice of economic decision making is an evaluation process that measures additional benefits versus additional costs.
• ECON-1.2 Explain why the productive resources of land, labor, and capital are limited.
• ECON-1.3 Apply the concept that people respond to positive and negative incentives to past and current economic decisions.

Standard ECON-2:   The student will demonstrate an understanding of how markets facilitate exchange and how market regulation costs both consumers and producers.

• ECON-2.1 Illustrate how markets are created when voluntary exchanges occur between buyers and sellers.
• ECON-2.2 Explain how efficient markets allocate goods, services, and the factors of production in a market-based economy.
• ECON-2.3 Illustrate how competition among sellers lowers costs and prices.
• ECON-2.4 Illustrate how an economically efficient market allocates goods and services to the buyers who are willing to pay for them.
• ECON-2.5 Explain how business cycles, market conditions, government policies, and inequalities affect the living standards of individuals and other economic entities.
• ECON-2.6 Explain how market power enables some market structures to affect their situations to varying degrees and to use this market power to increase prices and reduce output.

Standard ECON-3:    The student will demonstrate an understanding of how government policies, business cycles, inflation, deflation, savings rates, and employment affect all economic entities.

• ECON-3.1 Explain that institutions in a market economy help individuals and groups accomplish their goals.
• ECON-3.2 Illustrate how money and the consequent banking system facilitate trade, historically and currently.
• ECON-3.3 Explain how real interest rates adjust savings with borrowing, thus affecting the allocation of scarce resources between present and future users.
• ECON-3.4 Use a circular flow diagram to explain how changes in economic activity affect households and businesses.
• ECON-3.5 Explain how the federal government regulates the American economy in order to provide economic security, full employment, and economic equity.
• ECON-3.6 Explain how economic indicators are used to evaluate changes in economic activity.
• ECON-3.7 Illustrate the relationships among business cycles and unemployment, growth, price levels, wage rates, and investment.
• ECON-3.8 Explain how the Federal Reserve regulates the amount of cash that banks can acquire and retain and therefore helps to provide a foundation for economic stability.
• ECON-3.9 Exemplify how government, in a market economy, provides for services that private markets fail to provide and thus the costs of government policies often exceed benefits.

Standard ECON-4:    The student will demonstrate an understanding of how trade among nations affects markets, employment, economic growth, and other activity in the domestic economy.

• ECON-4.1 Summarize how differing factor endowments—such as geography, the development of technology, and the abundance of labor—affect the goods and services in which a nation specializes.
• ECON-4.2 Explain how the United States specializes in the production of those goods and services in which it has a comparative advantage.
• ECON-4.3 Explain how the rise of a global marketplace contributes to the well-being of all societies but the benefits derived from globalization are unequal.
• ECON-4.4 Explain how a global marketplace influences domestic labor markets, wage rates, unemployment levels, and disparities in earning potentials.

Standard ECON-5:    The student will demonstrate an understanding of how personal financial decisions affect an individual’s present and future economic status.

• ECON-5.1 Explain how individuals make personal economic decisions and how current spending and acquisition of debt can impact future income.
• ECON-5.2 Explain that income for most people is determined by the market value of the productive resources they sell.
• ECON-5.3 Explain how wage rates for most workers depend upon the market value of what the workers produce for the marketplace.

 

 

Other Standards:  (List national or local standards students are expected to master in this course)

• Voluntary National Content Standards in Economics

http://www.councilforeconed.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/voluntary-national-content-standards-2010.pdf (Links to an external site.)

 

Scarcity

Students will understand that: Productive resources are limited. Therefore, people cannot have all the goods and services they want; as a result, they must choose some things and give up others.

Decision-making

Effective decision making requires comparing the additional costs of alternatives with the additional benefits. Many choices involve doing a little more or a little less of something: few choices are “all or nothing” decisions.

Allocation

Different methods can be used to allocate goods and services. People acting individually or collectively must choose which methods to use to allocate different kinds of goods and services.

Incentives

People usually respond predictably to positive and negative incentives.

Trade

Voluntary exchange occurs only when all participating parties expect to gain. This is true for trade among individuals or organizations within a nation, and among individuals or organizations in different nations.

Specialization

When individuals, regions, and nations specialize in what they can produce at the lowest cost and then trade with others, both production and consumption increase.

Markets and Prices

A market exists when buyers and sellers interact. This interaction determines market prices and thereby allocates scarce goods and services.

Role of Prices

Prices send signals and provide incentives to buyers and sellers. When supply or demand changes, market prices adjust, affecting incentives.

Competition and Market Structure

Competition among sellers usually lowers costs and prices, and encourages producers to produce what consumers are willing and able to buy. Competition among buyers increases prices and allocates goods and services to those people who are willing and able to pay the most for them.

Institutions

Institutions evolve and are created to help individuals and groups accomplish their goals. Banks, labor unions, markets, corporations, legal systems, and not-for-profit organizations are examples of important institutions. A different kind of institution, clearly defined and enforced property rights, is essential to a market economy.

Money and Inflation

Money makes it easier to trade, borrow, save, invest, and compare the value of goods and services. The amount of money in the economy affects the overall price level. Inflation is an increase in the overall price level that reduces the value of money.

Interest Rates

Interest rates, adjusted for inflation, rise and fall to balance the amount saved with the amount borrowed, which affects the allocation of scarce resources between present and future uses.

Income

Income for most people is determined by the market value of the productive resources they sell. What workers earn primarily depends on the market value of what they produce.

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurs take on the calculated risk of starting new businesses, either by embarking on new ventures similar to existing ones or by introducing new innovations. Entrepreneurial innovation is an important source of economic growth.

Economic Growth

Investment in factories, machinery, new technology, and in the health, education, and training of people stimulates economic growth and can raise future standards of living.

Role of Government and Market Failure

There is an economic role for government in a market economy whenever the benefits of a government policy outweigh its costs. Governments often provide for national defense, address environmental concerns, define and protect property rights, and attempt to make markets more competitive. Most government policies also have direct or indirect effects on people’s incomes.

Government Failure

Costs of government policies sometimes exceed benefits. This may occur because of incentives facing voters, government officials, and government employees, because of actions by special interest groups that can impose costs on the general public, or because social goals other than economic efficiency are being pursued.

Economic Fluctuations

Fluctuations in a nation’s overall levels of income, employment, and prices are determined by the interaction of spending and production decisions made by all households, firms, government agencies, and others in the economy. Recessions occur when overall levels of income and employment decline.

Unemployment and Inflation

Unemployment imposes costs on individuals and the overall economy. Inflation, both expected and unexpected, also imposes costs on individuals and the overall economy. Unemployment increases during recessions and decreases during recoveries.

Fiscal and Monetary Policy

Federal government budgetary policy and the Federal Reserve System’s monetary policy influence the overall levels of employment, output, and prices.

• Voluntary Standards for Financial Literacy

http://www.councilforeconed.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/national-standards-for-financial-literacy.pdf (Links to an external site.)

1.                    Earning Income Income for most people is determined by the market value of their labor, paid as wages and salaries. People can increase their income and job opportunities by choosing to acquire more education, work experience, and job skills. The decision to undertake an activity that increases income or job opportunities is affected by the expected benefits and costs of such an activity. Income also is obtained from other sources such as interest, rents, capital gains, dividends, and profits.
2.                  Buying Goods and Services People cannot buy or make all the goods and services they want; as a result, people choose to buy some goods and services and not buy others. People can improve their economic well-being by making informed spending decisions, which entails collecting information, planning, and budgeting.

III.                Saving Saving is the part of income that people choose to set aside for future uses. People save for different reasons during the course of their lives. People make different choices about how they save and how much they save. Time, interest rates, and inflation affect the value of savings.

1.                Using Credit Credit allows people to purchase goods and services that they can use today and pay for those goods and services in the future with interest. People choose among different credit options that have different costs. Lenders approve or deny applications for loans based on an evaluation of the borrower’s past credit history and expected ability to pay in the future. Higher-risk borrowers are charged higher interest rates; lower-risk borrowers are charged lower interest rates.
2.                  Financial Investing Financial investment is the purchase of financial assets to increase income or wealth in the future. Investors must choose among investments that have different risks and expected rates of return. Investments with higher expected rates of return tend to have greater risk. Diversification of investment among a number of choices can lower investment risk.

•                Protecting and Insuring People make choices to protect themselves from the financial risk of lost income, assets, health, or identity. They can choose to accept risk, reduce risk, or transfer the risk to others. Insurance allows people to transfer risk by paying a fee now to avoid the possibility of a larger loss later. The price of insurance is influenced by an individual’s behavior.

Required Instructional Materials and Resources: (List required materials including SDOC provided textbooks, including any fees that apply, etc.)

Current Textbook:

Economics: Today and Tomorrow. 2005. Glencoe

Adopted Textbook:

• Understanding Economics. 2015. McGraw-HIll.

Optional Materials and Resources:

• Foundation for Teaching Economics –  www.fte.org
• Council for Economic Education - Focus: Globalization / Focus: Economics Systems - http://www.councilforeconed.org
• Council for Economic Education/ Virtual Education - http://www.econedlink.org/
• http://www.councilforeconed.org/resources/
• Economic Education Web - http://ecedweb.unomaha.edu/K-12/home.cfm
• SC Economics - http://www.sceconomics.org/
• The Federal Reserve in Education - https://www.federalreserveeducation.org/
• Stossel in the Classroom – www.stosselintheclassroom.org
• Izzit – www.izzit.org
• Econoclass - http://www.econoclass.com/
• Econ Girl - https://www.youtube.com/user/jodiecongirl
• Khan Academy - https://www.khanacademy.org/
• Great Economic Mysteries - http://www.councilforeconed.org/resource/the-great-economic-mysteries-book/
• Economics in Action - http://www.councilforeconed.org/resource/economics-in-action/
• Freakonomics - http://freakonomics.com/
• Capstone: Exemplary Lessons for High School Economics - http://www.councilforeconed.org/resource/capstone-exemplary-lessons-for-high-school-economics/