Model Answer: Marginal Utility

Essay 2 of the 2021 AQA Economics Paper 1 asked students to discuss the extent to which economic agents are entirely rational in their decision making. Here is a model answer to that question:

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Model Answer - Concentrated Markets

Section A of the 2022 AQA A level economics paper 1 was all about market concentration in the supermarket sector. The 25 mark question asked the extent to which this was serving customer interests well. Here is a model answer, with diagrams, showing how to address this type of question:

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Marginal Utility Theory

Many people assume that the study of economics is all about money, but it is actually more focussed on the choices that households, firms and governments make. There is significant debate over the motives behind the decision-making process. Are we truly rational creatures, or are we influenced by a broad range of biases?

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Inequality

The eight richest people on the planet hold as much wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population put together. The richest of these, Jeff Bezos, has a level of wealth that you wouldn’t match if you earned $180,000 every day from when Jesus was born up to the present day.

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Behavioural Economic Theory

Economics is traditionally based on the assumption that consumers always act rationally and with total self-interest, sometimes known as 'homo-economicus'. Behavioural economics challenges this assumption in a number of ways:

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Trade Creation vs Trade Diversion

The trade creation and trade diversion diagrams are some of the toughest in macroeconomics but mastering them can be a route to the top mark bands in essay questions about economic integration.

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Diagram: Perfect Competition

Perfect competition in the short run. Firms are price takers with a horizontal demand curve. Supernormal profits may be earned at the profit maximising output MC=MR

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