Strand IV. Economic Perspective

Standard IV.1 Individual and Household Choices
Standard IV.2 Business Choices
Standard IV.3 Role of Government
Standard IV.4 Economic Systems
Standard IV.5 Trade

Standard IV.1 Individual and Household Choices
All students will describe and demonstrate how the economic forces of scarcity and choice affect the management of personal financial resources, shape consumer decisions regarding the purchase, use, and disposal of goods and services and affect the economic well-being of individuals and society.

	Early Elementary		Later Elementary		Middle School		High School
1. Identify ways families produce and consume goods and services. 2. List ways that individuals can conserve limited resources.		1. Explain why people must face scarcity when making economic decisions. 2. Identify the opportunity costs in personal decision making situations. 3. Use a decision making model to explain a personal choice. 4. Analyze the costs, benefits, and alternatives to using consumer credit.		1. Use economic reasoning when comparing price, quality and features of goods and services. 2. Evaluate employment and career opportunities in light of economic trends. 3. Analyze the reliability of information when making economic decisions.		1. Design a strategy for earning, spending, saving, and investing their resources. 2. Evaluate the impact on households of alternative solutions to societal problems such as health care, housing, or energy use. 3. Analyze ways individuals can select suppliers of goods and services and protect themselves from deception in the marketplace.

 

Standard IV.2 Business Choices
All students will explain and demonstrate how businesses confront scarcity and choice when organizing, producing, and using resources, and when supplying the marketplace.

	Early Elementary		Later Elementary		Middle School		High School
1. Connect economic needs with businesses that meet them. 2. Select a particular good or service and describe the types of resources necessary to produce and distribute it.		1. Distinguish between natural resources, human capital, and capital equipment in the production of a good or service. 2. Distinguish among individual ownership, partnership, and corporation. 3. Examine the historical and contemporary role a major industry has played in the state of Michigan and the United States.		1. Using a real example, describe how business practices, profit, and a willingness to take risks, enabled an entrepreneur to operate. 2. Compare various methods for the production and distribution of goods and services. 3. Describe the effects of a current public policy on businesses. 4. Examine the historical and contemporary role an industry has played and continues to play in a community.		1. Outline the decision making process a business goes through when deciding whether to export to a foreign market. 2. Evaluate ways to resolve conflicts resulting from differences between business interests and community values.

 

Standard IV.3 Role of Government
All students will describe how government decisions on taxation, spending, public goods, and regulation impact what is produced, how it is produced, and who receives the benefits of production.

	Early Elementary		Later Elementary		Middle School		High School
1. Describe a good or service provided by the local government and the method of payment. 2. Identify the goods and services their school provides and the people who provide them. 3. Identify an unmet local economic need and propose a plan to meet it.				1. Distinguish between public and private goods using contemporary examples. 2. Identify and describe different forms of economic measurement. 3. Use case studies to assess the role of government in the economy. 4. Distinguish different forms of taxation and describe their effects.		1. Describe the use of economic indicators and assess their accuracy. 2. Distinguish between monetary and fiscal policy and explain how each might be applied to problems such as unemployment and inflation. 3. Compare governmental approaches to economic growth in developing countries. 4. Evaluate a government spending program on the basis of its intended and unintended results.
1. Use a decision making model to explain a choice involving a public good or service. 2. Distinguish between the economic roles of local, state, and federal governments and cite examples of each. 3. Use a local example to assess the effectiveness of the government at providing public goods or resolving an economic dispute.

 

Standard IV.4 Economic Systems
All students will explain how a free market economic system works, as well as other economic systems, to coordinate and facilitate the exchange, production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

	Early Elementary		Later Elementary		Middle School		High School
1. Identify examples of markets they experience in their daily life. 2. Distinguish between producers and consumers in a market economy. 3. Describe how the choices they make impact business decisions.		1. Explain how prices are determined in a market economy and how they serve as a means of allocating resources. 2. Describe how they act as a producer and a consumer. 3. Analyze how Michigan's location has impacted its economic development.		1. Compare the historical record of market and command economies in solving the problem of scarcity. 2. Describe the roles of the various economic institutions which comprise the American economic system such as governments, business firms, labor unions, banks, and households. 3. Use case studies to exemplify how supply and demand, prices, incentives, and profits determine what is produced and distributed in the American economy. 4. Analyze how purchasers obtain information about goods and services from advertising and other sources.		1. Use case studies to exemplify how supply and demand, prices, incentives, and profits determine what is produced and distributed in a competitive world market. 2. Describe relationships between a domestic economy and the international economic system. 3. Evaluate the United States and other economic systems on their ability to achieve broad social goals such as freedom, efficiency, equity, security, development, and stability. 4. Describe relationships among the various economic institutions that comprise economic systems such as households, business firms, banks, government agencies, and labor unions. 5. Compare and contrast a free market economic system with other economic systems.

 

Standard IV.5 Trade
All students will describe how trade generates economic development and interdependence and analyze the resulting challenges and benefits for individuals, producers, and government.

	Early Elementary		Later Elementary		Middle School		High School
1. Recognize economic exchanges in which they participate. 2. Identify United States coin and currency denominations and describe the role of cash in the exchange of goods and services.		1. Trace the national origin of common household items and the trade flows which brought them to the United States. 2. Describe benefits of international trade to consumers and producers. 3. Describe how businesses are involved in trade as producers, distributors, importers, and exporters.		1. Identify the current and potential contributions of national and world regions to trade. 2. Examine the role of the United States government in regulating commerce as stated in the United States Constitution. 3. Describe the historical development of the different means of payment such as barter, precious metals, or currency to facilitate exchange.		1. Evaluate the benefits and problems of an economic system built on voluntary exchange. 2. Trace the historical development of international trading ties. 3. Explain how specialization, interdependence and economic development are related. 4. Describe the effect of currency exchange, tariffs, quotas, and product standards on world trade and domestic economic activity.