Original post
by Peach_rose34
I don’t do law but my friend says it’s lots and lots of case studies and the exams are all 20 mark essays.
On economics I can answer any specific question's you have and I’ll just give an overview.
It’s split into macro and microeconomics, macro deals with the national and global economy and microeconomics deals with firms and individual product markets . Within micro you do:
-PPFs, the fundamental economic problem, diminishing marginal returns/labour productivity
-determinants of demand, supply and their elasticities, and price determination in markets
Which are core concepts then developed in:
-market failure, where you study the causes and types of market failure including externalities, monopolies, etc
-policies that address market failure and the extent to which they can work eg max/min pricing, regulation, taxes, subsidies, competition policy
-how price and output is determined in markets with different levels of competition where the degree of product differentiation, price setting power, concentration of large firms and barriers to entry vary
-market efficiencies and how they are affected by the level of competition
-production costs and revenue which looks at economies of scale, the short run vs long run ideas, the impact of division of labour, specialisation and fiat currency as a medium of exchange (it’s very Adam smith/classical economics)
-the labour market, including determination of wages, the role of trade unions, inequality and the NMW policy
-distribution of wealth and government policies that address inequality
-public/private goods, problems like the tragedy of the commons/free rider problem , government intervention through nationalisation and government failure
In macro you look at:
-measurements of macroeconomic performance and how the national economy works cyclically with aggregate demand and supply, which is really boring but you need to understand it
This is built upon with:
-economic growth and the 4 main macro policies, the causes of growth and its effect on employment, the cpi, and the balance of payments
-financial markets and monetary policy , how they work and how central banks and governments manage them
-the role of the banking sector
-fiscal and supply side policies that promote growth, disinflation and rising employment
-economic development globally , globalisation and free trade, and how and why exchange rates vary
I personally find it to be my easiest subject because my other a levels are awful . It is quite interesting, albeit full of abstract graphs where you don’t actually do any maths, you just draw them to model scenarios with no numbers(this annoys me as someone doing fm a level) . If you have a bad teacher it’s one of the worst subjects to take, I cannot emphasise enough how important it is that the concepts get explained properly. I got a proper teacher in Feb of y12 so I know what it’s like to start the a level late. The exams are mostly essays but also include shorter questions and some multiple choice questions.
I’d rate it a 1/10 for the first few months before having a teacher, and now a 8/10.
If you want an idea of what the graphs look like just google “ negative externalities of production diagram” or “Keynesian AS/AD multiplier effect diagram “ for an idea of what the easier graphs look like. Don’t worry if it seems complicated, it all builds on itself , hence why I think those graphs are easy as do most people doing the subject.