Central Themes of IB Economics

The IB Economics course is organized around a set of recurring themes, sometimes called the nine central concepts, that thread through every part of the syllabus. Rather than treating micro and macro topics as isolated, these concepts give you a lens for connecting ideas and evaluating economic issues from multiple angles. Mastering them early makes the rest of the course cohere.

Scarcity, choice, and efficiency

The course begins where economics begins, with scarcity: the imbalance between unlimited wants and limited resources. Scarcity forces choice, and every choice carries an opportunity cost. A closely related concept is efficiency, which asks whether resources are being used to generate the greatest possible benefit. Allocative efficiency is achieved when resources are used to produce