The 99 Best Economics Resources

Essen­tials

You can down­load the new eco­nom­ics course guide here: 2013 Guide. And for those still on the old guide that one is here 2003 Guide.

The IB Course Com­pan­ion is writ­ten specif­i­cally for this course. It is very read­able and easy to under­stand.
The Eco­nom­ics for the IB Diploma book is also very good. It’s per­haps a lit­tle more comprehensive.

IB Eco­nom­ics Websites

Welker’s Wiki­nomics — A web­site cre­ated by an IB eco­nom­ics teacher con­tain­ing use­ful IB lec­ture notes as well as a blog
Tutor2U — A resource for AS, A2 and IB eco­nom­ics revi­sion
Biz/ed — A gen­eral resource for learn­ing eco­nom­ics, listed by topic.
Essen­tials of Eco­nom­ics — Sum­maries, online quizes and case stud­ies relat­ing to the text­book “Essen­tials of Eco­nom­ics”
Eco­nomic Pol­icy Debate — Is a place for online debates regard­ing cur­rent con­tro­ver­sial ideas in eco­nom­ics. For IB Econ stu­dents, it’s a good place to review key con­cepts and evaluate.

Videos

Some really good video lessons from EconClassroom.com
Paj Holden’s YouTube page is also full of great IB Econ-specific videos
Econ Sto­ries — A funny rap video show­ing the dif­fer­ent eco­nomic philoso­phies of Keynes and Hayek

Pod­casts

Planet Money. One of my favourite pod­casts. They do a great job of mak­ing sense of com­pli­cated con­cepts. Very enter­tain­ing. (Just add it to your pod­casts in iTunes). Highly rec­om­mended
The Econ­o­mist Mag­a­zine — Editor’s High­lights. Use­ful if you don’t have time to read the Econ­o­mist. Key sec­tions of the weekly audio edi­tion are read to you. (Just add it to your pod­casts in iTunes).

Arti­cles, Blogs and Blog Posts

Some stu­dent notes on the IB Eco­nom­ics course, by sec­tion. Not the best notes in the world, but use­ful for a quick review.
Paul Krugman’s Blog “The Con­science of a Lib­eral” — A blog writ­ten by the Nobel Lau­re­ate, from a Keyn­sian per­spec­tive. Def­i­nitely worth a read a read a few times a year.

Inter­nal Assess­ment (IA)

A quick primer on the IB Eco­nom­ics IA. The basics. Worth read­ing to make sure you’re clear on the require­ments. Highly rec­om­mended

Extended Essay (EE)

The 4 Ques­tions You Need to Answer at the Start of Your Extended Essay process. Avoid com­mon mis­takes and set your­self up for a suc­cess­ful Extended Essay.
Extended Essays in Economics. Andrew McCarthy’s post on EE’s in Eco­nom­ics
An excel­lent exam­ple of an Eco­nom­ics Extended Essay, from a stu­dent in Hong Kong.

IB Eco­nom­ics Research Resources

Gap­min­der is a great source for sta­tis­tics and videos explain­ing the state of the world. Highly rec­om­mended
The Econ­o­mist — Arguably the most influ­en­tial and impor­tant pub­li­ca­tion in the world
Asian Devel­op­ment Bank — Eco­nom­ics and sta­tis­tics resources of the mul­ti­lat­eral, Asian-oriented devel­op­ment finance insti­tu­tion that pro­motes eco­nomic and social progress
Bank of Eng­land — The web­site of the Bank of Eng­land, the UK’s Cen­tral Bank
CIA World Fact­book — An online resource on the his­tory, peo­ple, gov­ern­ment, and economies of every coun­try in the world.
Eco­nomic Com­mis­sion for Latin Amer­ica and the Caribbean — The UN’s Eco­nomic Com­mis­sion for Latin Amer­ica and the Caribbean. Some very inter­est­ing real life exam­ples.
Fed­eral Reserve — The web­site of the US Fed­eral Reserve, the cen­tral bank of the United States
Gold­man Sachs’ Global Eco­nomic Out­look — Global eco­nomic research put out by one of the lead­ing invest­ment banks, Gold­man Sachs
Inter­na­tional Mon­e­tary Fund — The web­site of the Inter­na­tional Mon­e­tary Fund — the “cen­tral banker’s cen­tral bank”
UN human Devel­op­ment Reports — The web­site of the UN’s Devel­op­ment Pro­gram
World Bank — The web­site of the world bank, the world’s pre-eminent (and often con­tro­ver­sial) devel­op­ment bank
World Trade Orga­ni­za­tion — The World Trade Organization’s web­site, con­tain­ing a wealth of eco­nom­ics research and information

Use­ful Links and Videos by Topic

Unit 1

Video — An intro­duc­tion to oppor­tu­nity cost. (From Paj Holden)
Video — An expla­na­tion of the Pro­duc­tion Pos­si­b­lity Curve (aka the Pro­duc­tion Pos­si­bil­ity Fron­tier). From (Bryn Jones)
Video — Watch a quick clip on oil scarcity
Flash — An inter­ac­tive les­son on types of economies. (Watch out though, they’ve done the spec­trum dia­gram back­wards to the way we do it). (From www.cba.edu.kw)
Video — A doc­u­men­tary on the finan­cial cri­sis (From PBS). This isn’t some­thing we have time to really go into dur­ing class. But if you’re inter­ested in it, it’s a good case study.

Unit 2

2.1 Mar­kets (Sup­ply, Demand and Price Con­trols)
A video on Sup­ply and Demand, here.
A sup­ply and demand review les­son, here.
Flash — An inter­ac­tive exten­sion activ­ity on demand. (From www.cba.edu.kw)
Flash — An inter­ac­tive exten­sion activ­ity on sup­ply. (From www.cba.edu.kw)
Video — Case study of the demand for oil increas­ing in China. Fairly in depth, but good if you have a few min­utes. (From CBC News)
2.2 Elas­tic­i­ties
Video — Watch these two videos on PED this one and this one.
Video — Here’s another video on PES.
Flash — A self-directed les­son on Elas­tic­ity.
Video - Elas­tic­ity and total rev­enue. (From Bryn Jones)
Video — An expla­na­tion of cross price elas­tic­ity of demand (aka cross elas­tic­ity of demand, or XED). (From Phil Holden)
Text — Some good exam­ples of elas­tic­i­ties (scroll down a bit) and an overview of elas­tic­ity in gen­eral.
2.3 The­ory of the Firm
Video — An expla­na­tion of cost curves. (Phil Holden)
Flash — a quick overview of mar­ket types. (Turn down your speak­ers. This is loud for some rea­son).
Video — An expla­na­tion of monop­o­lis­tic com­pe­ti­tion.
Video - Con­sumer and pro­ducer sur­plus. (from Bryn Jones)
Video - Eco­nom­ics and Dis­ec­o­nom­ics of Scale. A video that is a bit on the dull and slow­side, but it’s a good review (or pre­view of the LRAC curve).
2.4 Mar­ket Failure
Video - A short clip on exter­nal­i­ties, from the doc­u­men­tary, “The Cor­po­ra­tion”.
Video - Pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive exer­nal­i­ties. (from Bryn Jones)
Video — Another take on dia­gram­ing neg­a­tive exter­nal­i­ties.

Unit 3

Intro­duc­tion to Unit 3
Test — A very quick overview of the macro­eco­nomic objec­tives and (some of) the major inter­ven­tions avail­able to gov­ern­ments. (From Eco­nom­ics Help).
Blog — A quick intro­duc­tion into the dif­fer­ences between Macro and Micro. (From Jason Welker)
An hour long doc­u­men­tary about the Crash of 1929 and the sim­i­lar­i­ties to the reces­sion of 2008(From PBS).
3.1 Mea­sur­ing National Income
Video — Stiglitz explain­ing the lim­its of GDP as a mea­sure for eco­nomic achieve­ment. It’s inter­est­ing to think about how we mea­sure eco­nomic suc­cess (i.e very often sim­ply as GDP growth) con­sid­er­ably influ­ences us.
Video — A video on the cir­cu­lar flow of income (from Paj Holden, on YouTube) We’ll cover this in class, but if you’re keen to get ahead, or would like to review, this is a good one.
Appli­ca­tion — Have some fun with this tool from Gap­min­der. See what you can learn about all the dif­fer­ent indi­ca­tors and how country’s have devel­oped over time
3.2 Intro­duc­tion to Devel­op­ment
Video — A quick les­son on the diffrences between GDP and GNP. (From Paj Holden)
3.3 Macro­eco­nomic Mod­els
Video– Here is a video we use in class, on the 5 essen­tial dia­grams for AS and AD. It’s very good.
3.4 Demand-Side and Supply-Side Poli­cies
Flash Game — A mon­e­tary pol­icy game where you use inter­est rates as a tool for con­trol­ling infla­tion. Pretty cool. –Look, I’m an Eco­nom­ics teacher, this is what excites me!
Video — A review of fis­cal pol­icy and the mul­ti­plier effect (from Paj Holden, on YouTube), incase you’d like to review this.
Flash — An inter­ac­tive les­son on mon­e­tary pol­icy. (From www.cba.edu.kw)
Video — The Philips Curve and NAIRU explained.
Video — A news pro­gram dis­cussing how Aus­tralia is the first G20 coun­try to raise inter­est rates fol­low­ing the reces­sion. Just watch the few 5 min­utes. (From PBS)
Video — A dis­cus­sion of the cur­rent Amer­i­can fis­cal deficit. Again, rather lengthy. You may sim­ply want to watch the first 5 min­utes to get a sense of the sit­u­a­tion. (From Char­lie Rose).
Video — Intro to Fis­cal Pol­icy. (From Bryn Jones)
Video — A cou­ple of clips on Mon­e­tary pol­icy here is Part 1 and here is Part 2. (From Bryn Jones).
3.5 Unem­ploy­ment and Infla­tion
Flash — An inter­ac­tive les­son on types of unem­ploy­ment. (From www.cba.edu.kw)
Flash - An inter­ac­tive graph, show­ing the dif­fer­ences in how dif­fer­ent groups have been effected by the reces­sion. (From the New York Times)
Video - Three rea­sons defla­tion is so bad for economies. (from Paj Holden)
Flash/Audio — A very good his­tory of US gov­ern­ment responses to reces­sions since the 1960s. Lis­ten to the audio clips for each sec­tion, to hear how the gov­ern­ment tried to bal­ance infla­tion, fis­cal respon­si­bil­ity and unem­ploy­ment. (From the New York Times).

Unit 4

4.1 Rea­sons for Trade
Watch this about how the world is chang­ing (from Shift Hap­pens)
Read this: Is Glob­al­iza­tion a Force for Evil in the World and answer the ques­tions at the bot­tom.
Video — A review of the dif­fer­ences between com­par­a­tive and absolute advan­tage.
Video - Mil­ton Fried­man on the won­ders of the pen­cil (really it’s an expla­na­tion of the free mar­ket and the ide­ol­ogy that free trade pro­motes peace).
4.2 Free Trade and Pro­tec­tion­ism
Flash — See some exam­ples of pro­tec­tion­ism here.
Flash — A great walk through a World Trade and Tar­rifs Graph. (from cba.edu.kw)
Video — A very good dis­cus­sion on pro­tec­tion­ism at the moment (2009). (From Char­lie Rose)
Video - How gov­ern­ments use tar­rifs and quo­tas to restrict trade (From Bryn Jones)
4.4 World Trade Orga­ni­za­tion (WTO)
Video — From a few years ago, a WTO Rul­ing on Soft­wood Lum­ber exports from Canada to the US — Pro­tec­tion­ism (From CBC).
Video — Some more his­tory. Cana­di­ans protest­ing APEC in 1997. A good reminder of where our cur­rent protest move­ment comes from. (From CBC)
Video - Some insight into the anti-WTO move­ment. A bit lefty, but still pretty insight­ful. They make some good points. (From WTO Turn Around.org)
Video — WTO and the chal­lenges of trade jus­tice. (from Trade Aid)
4.5 Bal­ance of Pay­ments
On Bal­ance of Pay­ments, please read this.
Flash– An inter­ac­tive les­son on Bal­ance of Pay­ments. (From cba.edu.kw)
Video - Cur­rent account deficits and exchange rates (the Marshall-Lerner con­di­tion). (From Phil Holden)
4.6 Exchange Rates
Flash — A basic intro­duc­tion les­son on exchange rates. (From cba.edu.kw)
Site — See how the Big Mac Index looks after you fac­tor in today’s exchange rates. (From oanda.com)
4.7 Bal­ance of Pay­ment Prob­lems
4.8 Terms of Trade

Unit 5

5.1 Sources of Eco­nomic Growth and Devel­opment
Web page — A good expla­na­tion of the dif­fer­ences between LDCs and MDCs.
5.2 Con­se­quences of Growth
5.3 Bar­ri­ers to Eco­nomic Growth and Devel­op­ment
5.4 Growth and Devel­op­ment Strate­gies
5.5 Eval­u­a­tion of Growth and Devel­op­ment Strategies

We’re not quite to 99 yet. If you know if any great resources to help your fel­low IB Eco­nom­ics stu­dents, please either email me via the “con­tact” page or link to them in the comments.

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