What is an IA?

An internal Assessment in Economics is a written commentary based on an economics article

that you have chosen.
The article you choose should allow you to explain and analyze economic events.
For Economics SL, your IA represents 25% of your total IB score for Economics.
For Economics HL, your IA represents 20% of your total IB score for Economics.
How it is assessed:
There are 5 IB Criteria on which your commentary will be assessed:
A - word limit+ IAs cover more than 3 sections of syllabus. [2 marks]
B - 4 different sources + appropriate use of diagrams. [4 marks]
C - Economic terms are used and are defined correctly. [5 marks]
D - Theory explained and applied [5 marks]
E - Evaluation [4 marks]
The first three criteria of your portfolio should be no problem for you.
Mistakes are possible here, but if you are careful A, B and C should be fine.
What separates the top students is the analysis and evaluation they show in D and E.

How to write your IA

Step 1: Pick a news article
I'd recommend a new article which is pretty specific. It should either focus on a specific event,
community or can just be anything you feel would make a good commentary.
One thing I would recommend is to stay simple. If you don't know what an article is saying, don't
try to bs your way out of it. You'll lose marks, and there are plenty of simple articles around.
For your first IA, you mostly need to find an article that will allow you to use the concepts of
supply/demand, elasticity, and market failure.
In your internet search, it would be useful to search for the price of a commodity.
price of coffee, price of oil, price of cocoa, etc.
Yes, finding a good article is important. Even if it takes you hours to find a good one, it's better
to do that than to quickly find a not-so-good one and then realize that there's not much to say
about it. Personally, it took me a while to find good articles.
Tip: choose article that doesnt say much , so you can fill in the lines and expand.
If the article is long, you need to highlight the sections you use
A few sites I'd recommend:
Google News
BBC

Guardian
Reuters
... or your local newspaper, there are quite often many relevant articles in there.
Step 2: The Introduction
A lot of people find starting a economics commentary hard. Here's my step-by-step approach:

Summarise the article in a line or two

Define some key terms which are going to be relevant to your discussion

In one sentence summarise what you are going to say (eg what effect the event will have)

Don't forget to define your terms correctly!! The easiest way to do this is to just copy the
definitions word for word out of your textbook/notes.

Step 3: The Body

Draw a diagram
You NEED a diagram (usually) if you want to do well, just make sure your diagram is relevant as
you will need to refer to it when you discuss your article further.
Next you want to expand on the specifics on how your news article (or technically what the news
article is reporting) will affect the economy. Will it increase demand for giant two-headed pens?
Will the supply fall for goblin ears? How is this going to affect the price of that good (use
elasticities, etc).
Draw more diagrams if relevant. The more the merrier, as long as they are justified, don't shy
from drawing another diagram.
1. Include quotes and footnote them correctly. If you continue quoting the same article just write
i.b.i.d (latin for: same as previous).
2. Make sure that you stay within the wordcount of 650-750, aim for the 750 though ( all words
even titles and labels must be counted). This and following the general guidelines of the IB
(minimum of three different sections in all four IAs, one can be done twice e.g. microeconomics)
should net you the two easy marks for criterion A.
3. Use preferably two diagrams. Diagrams will save words if implemented appropriately and
convey your economic understanding better.

Consider:
1. Short term versus long term implications
2. Effects on different stakeholders
3. Prioritise the arguments
4. Question validity of a theory/data presented

5.Can you detect contradictions/limitations between economic theory and the real world problem
at hand.
6. Are there winners and losers
7. Is there any bias in the way the article was written
8. Can you predict what will happen in the future based on what happened in this article?
Step 4: The conclusion
Briefly conclude by stating what's going to happen and maybe speculate more on the future, say
what you might happen to counter this, etc, etc.
Also in your conclusion remember to remark and talk about the effect on the different
stakeholders i.e
consumers
producers
the governement etc
For the evaluation, you could also mention long term and short term effects along with
stakeholders. and the advantages and disadvantages of whatever solution you suggest