The economics program at SAS consists of five courses: Introduction to Economics, Decision Analysis, AP Macroeconomics, AP Microeconomics and our Advanced Topics course on International Trade and Globalization. This page is meant to be an instructional resource for social studies teachers at the Singapore American School. We hope it will serve as a resource for teachers at other schools too.
Although we have modified them slightly to suit the specific needs of SAS students, the economics standards at SAS are based on the "Voluntary National Content Standards in Economics" outlined by the Council for Economic Education. Our standards are identified below.
Scarcity: Students will understand that productive resources are limited. Therefore, people cannot have all the goods and services they want; as a result, they must choose some things and give up others.
Decision Making: Students will understand that effective decision making requires comparing the additional costs of alternatives with the additional benefits. Many choices involve doing a little more or a little less of something: few choices "are all or nothing" decisions.
Allocation: Students will understand that different methods can be used to allocate goods and services. People acting individually or collectively must choose which methods to use to allocate different kinds of goods and services.
Incentives: Students will understand that people usually respond predictably to positive and negative incentives.
Trade: Students will understand that voluntary exchange occurs only when all participating parties expect to gain. This is true for trade among individuals or organizations within a nation, and among individuals or organizations in different nations.
Specialization: Students will understand that when individuals, regions, and nations specialize in what they can produce at the lowest cost and then trade with others, both production and consumption increase.
Markets and Prices: Students will understand that markets exist when buyers and sellers interact. This interaction determines market prices and thereby allocates scarce goods and services.
Role of Prices: Students will understand that prices send signals and provide incentives to buyers and sellers. When supply or demand changes, market prices adjust, affecting incentives.
Competition and Market Structure: Students will understand that competition among sellers usually lowers costs and prices, and encourages producers to produce what consumers are willing and able to buy. Competition among buyers increases prices and allocates goods and services to those people who are willing and able to pay the most for them.
Institutions: Students will understand that institutions evolve and are created to help individuals and groups accomplish their goals. Banks, labor unions, markets, corporations, legal systems, and not-for-profit organizations are examples of important institutions. A different kind of institution, clearly defined and enforced property rights, is essential to a market economy.
Money and Inflation: Students will understand that money makes it easier to trade, borrow, save, invest, and compare the value of goods and services. The amount of money in the economy affects the overall price level. Inflation is an increase in the overall price level that reduces the value of money.
Interest Rates: Students will understand that interest rates, adjusted for inflation, rise and fall to balance the amount saved with the amount borrowed, which affects the allocation of scarce resources between present and future uses.
Income: Students will understand that income for most people is determined by the market value of the productive resources they sell. What workers earn primarily depends on the market value of what they produce.
Entrepreneurship: Students will understand that entrepreneurs take on the calculated risk of starting new businesses, either by embarking on new ventures similar to existing ones or by introducing new innovations. Entrepreneurial innovation is an important source of economic growth.
Economic Growth: Students will understand that investment in factories, machinery, new technology, and in the health, education, and training of people stimulates economic growth and can raise future standards of living.
Role of Government and Market Failure: Students will understand that there is an economic role for government in a market economy whenever the benefits of a government policy outweigh its costs. Governments often provide for national defense, address environmental concerns, define and protect property rights, and attempt to make markets more competitive. Most government policies also have direct or indirect effects on people's incomes.
Government Failure: Students will understand that costs of government policies sometimes exceed benefits. This may occur because of incentives facing voters, government officials, and government employees, because of actions by special interest groups that can impose costs on the general public, or because social goals other than economic efficiency are being pursued.
Economic Fluctuations: Students will understand that fluctuations in a nation's overall levels of income, employment, and prices are determined by the interaction of spending and production decisions made by all households, firms, government agencies, and others in the economy. Recessions occur when overall levels of income and employment decline.
Unemployment and Inflation: Students will understand that unemployment imposes costs on individuals and the overall economy. Inflation, both expected and unexpected, also imposes costs on individuals and the overall economy. Unemployment increases during recessions and decreases during recoveries.
Fiscal and Monetary Policy: Students will understand that federal government budgetary policy and the Federal Reserve System's monetary policy influence the overall levels of employment, output, and prices.
Economic History and Philosophy: Students will understand that the discipline of economics and its core understandings have evolved as a result of the events of history (and the forces that have guided them) and the interpretations of those events and forces by scholars.
Introduction to Economics: The introductory course provides students some insight into ways by which people and nations function economically, i.e., how they make a living. Basic economic concepts including wealth, utility,capital, labor, supply and demand, profit and competition, production, distribution, exchange, consumption, and the factors affecting each area are studied. Monetary and fiscal policies are examined in the light of contemporary economics, both national and international. Students will study fiscal policy, the public debt, and ways banks create money. This course serves several purposes. First, students who successfully complete the course should have a solid grounding in the basic conceptual frameworks of the discipline of economics and be able to apply those in a practical way to events in the real world. Second, the course may serve as a gateway for students who wish to make economics a focus of their coursework at SAS. All students who complete this course successfully should be able to move into AP Economics and then our advanced topics course (Globalization). Those that have demonstrated mastery of the course standards might move directly into the advanced topics course.
Decision Analysis: This course is designed to encourage a logical, deductive approach to thinking, and to look at several different approaches to resolving conflicts. The major analytical method presented is “game theory.” Game theory methods are used to tackle issues and problems across the entire spectrum of the social sciences. The course is largely problem centered, applying game theory tactics and skills to hypothetical situations and to case studies that come from history, current world events, and the immediate world around us. Small group and individual analysis of these problems, followed by class discussion, is a common format.
AP Macroeconomics and AP Microeconomics: This is a rigorous two-semester economics course that emphasizes macroeconomics - the principles of economics that apply to the economic system as a whole - first semester, and microeconomics - the principles of economics that apply to the functions of individual decision makers within the larger system. Topics covered include basic concepts such as scarcity, trade-offs, and the functions of the economics system; the nature and function of product markets, including basic supply and demand theory, consumer choice theory, and pricing theory; the nature and function of factor markets, including theories of wage determination; measurement of economic performance using concepts such as gross domestic product, inflation, and unemployment; analysis of various schools of economic thought in relation to aggregate demand and aggregate supply; money and banking, including the tools of the central bank; and, finally, the usefulness of various government policies that can be applied to remedy the economic problems discussed throughout each semester. While a student may enroll in either or both semesters; however, it is strongly recommended that students not take the second semester microeconomics course unless they have successfully completed the macroeconomics course.
Globalization (Advanced Topics Course): This college level course is designed to offer students an opportunity to delve more deeply into the international economy than our introductory courses allow. First quarter topics include: free trade theory; barriers to free trade; foreign exchange; and international financial crises. The second quarter will address specific issues in globalization, including outsourcing, migration, China, the EU, and sovereign wealth funds. All students will write a research paper. This course is identified as being equivalent to an honors course on transcripts.