Leaving Cert economics: Topical paper tests time skills

Immigration, globalisation and motor insurance cartels featured on a very topical higher-level economics paper which required a lot of writing but was a fair examination of the syllabus, teachers have said.

Ray O’Loughlin, an economics teacher at the Institute of Education in Dublin, said that it was one of the nicest and most student-friendly economics papers in years.

“There was an equal split of micro and macro topics, which students will have liked. All the short questions were very straightforward. The micro topics were all student friendly topics like equilibrium, oligopoly, costs and elasticity. The macro topics included budgetary policy and assessing the performance of the economy,” he said.

However, he was surprised that the topic of Brexit and its implications for the Irish economy did not appear.

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Máiréad O’Sullivan, chair of the Business Studies Teachers Association of Ireland (Limerick branch) and a teacher at Glenstal Abbey, said that the paper required students to think critically in their answers.

“It was fair and balanced but it required them to have a sense of what is happening outside the textbook and in the real world. However, there were a lot more subsections than usual on the paper and even the most well-prepared student’s hand would have been falling off by the time they left the exam hall,” she said.

Ms O’Sullivan said that the paper was topical. One question referred to an investigation into a possible cartel in the motor insurance industry and asked about the effects on consumers and what the Government could do to discourage anti-competitive practices.

Students were quizzed on how Ireland’s membership of the eurozone affects fiscal and monetary policy as well as on why climate change and the environment were pressing concerns for world governments.

Topical questions about globalisation and labour mobility also featured on the paper.

The short questions were very fair, she said.

The ordinary level paper featured a number of nice broad questions on topical issues, including Brexit and the tax on sugar sweetened drinks. There was nothing unfair on the paper, said Ms O’Sullivan.

Just under 6,000 students sat the economics paper, with only around 465 sitting the ordinary level paper.

Try this at home: Leaving Cert economics, higher level

‘Motor insurance providers in Ireland targeted in anti-cartel inquiry.’ (Source: The Irish Times, July 2017)

(i) Explain the likely effects on consumers if collusion (e.g. cartel agreement) existed in the motor insurance industry.

(ii) Suggest two measures the government could consider to discourage anti-competitive practices in industry. Explain your answer.