Foundations of Economics
1. Examine the causal relationship between scarcity and
the need for choices.
2. Explain opportunity cost and marginal benefit and marginal cost.
3. Identify the difference between monetary and nonmonetary incentives and
how changes in incentives cause changes in behavior.
4. Evaluate the role of private property as an incentive in conserving and
improving scarce resources, including renewable and nonrenewable natural
resources.
5. Analyze the role of a market economy in establishing and preserving
political and personal liberty (e.g., through the works of Adam Smith).
12.4 Students analyze the elements of the U.S. labor market in a global setting.
2. Describe the current economy and labor market,
including the types of goods and services produced, the types of skills
workers need, the effects of rapid technological change, and the impact of
international competition.
3. Discuss wage differences among jobs and professions, using the laws of
demand and supply and the concept of productivity.
Unit 1-Foundations of Economics
12.2 Students analyze the elements of America's market economy in a global setting.
1. Understand the relationship of the concept
of incentives to the law of supply and the relationship of the concept of
incentives and substitutes to the law of demand.
2. Discuss the effects of changes in supply and/ or demand on the relative
scarcity, price, and quantity of particular products.
3. Explain the roles of property rights, competition, and profit in a market
economy.
4. Explain how prices reflect the relative scarcity of goods and services
and perform the allocative function in a market economy.
5. Understand the process by which competition among buyers and sellers
determines a market price.
6. Describe the effect of price controls on buyers and sellers.
7. Analyze how domestic and international competition in a market economy
affects goods and services produced and the quality, quantity, and price of
those products.
8. Explain the role of profit as the incentive to entrepreneurs in a market
economy.
9. Describe the functions of the financial markets.
10. Discuss the economic principles that guide the location of agricultural
production and industry and the spatial distribution of transportation and
retail facilities.
Business Organizations
Taxes and Government Spending
1. Understand how the role of government in a market
economy often includes providing for national defense, addressing
environmental concerns, defining and enforcing property rights, attempting
to make markets more competitive, and protecting consumers' rights.
2. Identify the factors that may cause the costs of government actions to
outweigh the benefits.
3. Describe the aims of government fiscal policies (taxation, borrowing,
spending) and their influence on production, employment, and price levels.
4. Understand the aims and tools of monetary policy and their influence on
economic activity (e.g., the Federal Reserve).
12.5 Students analyze the aggregate
economic behavior of the U.S. economy.
1. Distinguish between nominal and real data.
2. Define, calculate, and explain the significance of an unemployment rate,
the number of new jobs created monthly, an inflation or deflation rate, and
a rate of economic growth.
3. Distinguish between short-term and long-term interest rates and explain
their relative significance.
Macroeconomic Principles
Global Economics & International Trade
1. Identify the gains in consumption and production
efficiency from trade, with emphasis on the main products and changing
geographic patterns of twentieth-century trade among countries in the
Western Hemisphere.
2. Compare the reasons for and the effects of trade restrictions during the
Great Depression compared with present-day arguments among labor, business,
and political leaders over the effects of free trade on the economic and
social interests of various groups of Americans.
3. Understand the changing role of international political borders and
territorial sovereignty in a global economy.
4. Explain foreign exchange, the manner in which exchange rates are
determined, and the effects of the dollar's gaining (or losing) value
relative to other currencies.
12.4 Students analyze the elements of the U.S. labor market in a global setting.
1. Understand the operations of the labor market,
including the circumstances surrounding the establishment of principal
American labor unions, procedures that unions use to gain benefits for their
members, the effects of unionization, the mini-mum wage, and unemployment
insurance.