11–12Economics 11–12 Syllabus (2025)

Implementation from 2027

Expand for detailed implementation advice

Content

Year 11

Teaching advice

Examples

Introduction to economics

The Business and Economics Life Skills 11–12 Syllabus and its outcomes are being developed alongside the Business Studies 11–12 Syllabus.

Introduction to economics

Economic thinking

What is an economy and what is economics?
The economic problem, including wants, resources and scarcity, and economic decision-making as the choice between alternatives
Economic agents responsible for economic decision-making, including consumers, producers and government
Opportunity cost and other trade-offs in economic decision-making
Cost–benefit principle in economic decision-making, including marginal costs and benefits, and short-term versus long-term factors
Incentives and disincentives in economic decision-making, including intended and unintended consequences
Role of data in economic decision-making, including informing public policy, monitoring economic performance and forecasting
Role of models in economic decision-making, including the key assumptions of economic models
Challenge of behavioural economics to conventional assumptions of rational behaviour and self-interest in economic decision-making, including cognitive biases and ethical considerations
Relationship between microeconomics and macroeconomics
Contribution of economics to understanding and solving real-world problems

Operation of an economy

Factors of production, including natural resources (land), labour, capital and entrepreneurship
Factor incomes, specifically rent, wages, interest and profit
Key questions for any economy, including ‘What to produce?’, ‘How to produce?’, ‘How much to produce?’, ‘How to distribute production?’
How the key questions for any economy are addressed in different economic systems, including pre-industrial, planned, free market and mixed market economies
Importance of money to the operation of an economy, including its forms and functions

Economic model: production possibilities

Production possibilities model and opportunity cost, including production possibilities frontiers (PPF) and production possibilities schedules
Interpret PPFs and production possibilities schedules, including shifts of the frontier
Assumptions of the production possibilities model
Identify opportunity costs from PPFs and production possibilities schedules
Economic efficiency and reasons for an economy operating on, inside or outside its PPF, including underemployment of resources and technological advances
Opportunity costs of producing consumer and capital goods

Economic model: circular flow of income

Roles of the household, business, financial, government and international sectors in the circular flow of income model
Income flows into the economy (injections) and out of the economy (leakages) from different sectors via investment ( $I$ ), government spending ( $G$ ), exports ( $X$ ), savings ( $S$ ), taxation ( $T$ ) and imports ( $M$ )
Interpret circular flow of income diagrams
Identify equilibrium and disequilibrium positions in an economy using the formula $S + T + M = I + G + X$
Effects of change to injections and leakages on the circular flow of income model and the overall economy

Economic model: business cycle

Gross domestic product (GDP), including contributions of the private and public sectors
Reasons economies pursue higher GDP
Contributions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses to GDP
Stages of the business cycle, including expansion/upturn, contraction/downturn, peak, trough
Relationship between stages of the business cycle and economic conditions, including unemployment and inflation
Reasons for fluctuations in the business cycle
Effects of business cycle fluctuations on households, businesses and government

Related files

Year 12