CAIE A-Level Economics answers, written to the spec
5 topics · explanations and examiner marking in CAIE’s own language
Studying CAIE A-Level Economics? Pick your board once and every answer, mark and flashcard elid gives you follows that specification. Free to start, no card needed. Open elid →
This is the full CAIE A-Level Economics specification, as elid holds it — 5 topics, each with the terminology CAIE marks against. Every explanation and every mark elid gives you is written against this list, not a generic A-level one, because the same question answered in AQA, Edexcel or OCR language loses marks it should have earned.
The CAIE A-Level Economics specification, topic by topic
Micro: Basic Economic Ideas and Resource Allocation
Assessed in Paper 1, 2
Scarcity, choices, resource allocation, transition economies, production possibility curves, and price elasticity.
Specification terms elid matches
Scarcity
choice
opportunity cost
PPC
ceteris paribus
PED
PES
consumer surplus
producer surplus
YED
XED
price mechanism
mixed economy
free market
Micro: Market Failure and Government Intervention
Assessed in Paper 1, 2
Market failure, negative and positive externalities, merit and demerit goods, public goods, information asymmetry, and corrective policies.
Specification terms elid matches
market failure
external cost
external benefit
social cost
social benefit
public good
merit good
demerit good
subsidy
indirect tax
information failure
moral hazard
adverse selection
property rights
Micro: Market Structure and Firm Behaviour
Assessed in Paper 3, 4
Growth of firms, cost and revenue curves, perfect competition, monopoly, monopolistic competition, oligopoly, contestable markets, and labour markets.
Specification terms elid matches
economies of scale
marginal revenue
average revenue
perfect competition
monopoly
oligopoly
normal profit
supernormal profit
monopolistic competition
diseconomies of scale
marginal cost
average cost
barriers to entry
natural monopoly
Macro: Macroeconomic Indicators and AD/AS
Assessed in Paper 1, 2
National income statistics, circular flow of income, Aggregate Demand, Aggregate Supply, CPI, unemployment, and balance of payments.
Specification terms elid matches
GDP
Aggregate Demand
Aggregate Supply
circular flow
inflation
unemployment
current account
output gap
GNI
economic growth
demand-pull inflation
cost-push inflation
cyclical unemployment
structural unemployment
Macro: Government Macro Intervention and International Trade
elid uses these weightings when it decides which topics deserve your revision time first.
Paper
Share of the qualification
Paper 1
17%
Paper 2
33%
Paper 3
17%
Paper 4
33%
Marked the way CAIE marks it
Paste an answer you have written and elid marks it point by point against the CAIE scheme: which marking points you hit, which you missed, and the sentence that would have earned each missing one. It is the difference between being told an answer is “good” and being told exactly where the marks went.
Ready to try it on your own question? Pick your board once and every answer, mark and flashcard elid gives you follows that specification. Free to start, no card needed. Open elid →