EconomicsNotes

All Economics Courses for A-Level and High School Students, and most foundation and introductory courses at university, will require you to learn about Aggregate Demand. A very basic introduction to AD is below.     Aggregate Demand, in one classic formulation, is the total amount that all the sectors of the economy willingly spend in a given period. It combines all the demand in all markets of an economy. There is a simple formulation in A-level of the elements of AD:  C+I+G+X-M . This is a combination which reflects Consumption, Investment, Government net spending, and net exports. You should recall that in the macroeconomic world, multiple things act upon each other at all times. This means that you cannot isolate a cause or effect of changes to the exclusion of everything else, as you can in microeconomics. There are certain things we can say, however. Most   movements along the AD curve  are caused by changes in the price level. Inflation changes expectatio...

  The Trade Cycle In a note below,  I have tried to describe the broad outlines of the cycles you will come across in economics. However, in terms of the trade cycle, what the examiners are looking for is an understanding that  economic growth fluctuates over time.  This is a regular and normal process, often driven by a ‘boom and bust’ approach to spending, inventories, borrowing, or assets. What one hopes for is that the  long term trend of economic growth  is actually upwards. You will find references to fiscal policy being ‘balanced over the cycle,’ or to ‘corrections,’ and ‘cyclical adjustments.’ These all refer to the idea that a kind of upward sloping sine wave is a better aid in visualising the economy’s progress than a straight line could be. You might be interested in the following links:  https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/11437/economics/why-is-the-aggregate-demand-ad-curve-downward-sloping/ https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/643/unemployme...

  There are a variety of policies which authorities could use to intervene when the market fails (that is, when the market price does not reflect the 'true' cost or benefit of a good or service, and where the price mechanism cannot therefore work.)  Different policies are suited to different failures. Below, I have set out the types of intervention, and then suggested which situations they fit. Type of Government Intervention Market Failures which the intervention is directed at Examples Indirect Taxation Indirect taxes function well to raise the price and lower the supply of a demerit good. They punish producers and discourage demand where demand is inelastic, and make the consumers pay for externalities when the consumer is inelastic. They are therefore widely used to cope with negative production and consumption externalities, though they may be subject to various forms of government failure. ...

I've been tutoring A-level and adult students in economics since 1998, amongst other things. I find that it sometimes helps for people to access notes to supplement the textbooks and revision guides on specific topics, so I will be putting my own material, plus links to other content, here. You can access it freely, but don't sell it on or pass anything off as your own work. Tutorial services can be accessed via my professional website . In time, I will compile the notes here into an amazon kindle book. Good luck!