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Regenerative Economics x IGCSE Economics Mapping
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This spreadsheet indicates possible footholds in the IGCSE syllabus for Regenerative Economics content.
Note: This is a living document. More Regenerative Economics content will be added as we develop the work 2024-2025
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Topic 1: The basic economic problem
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IGCSE Economics SyllabusRegenerative Economics Textbook SectionsAdditional comments
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1.1 The nature of the economic problem
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1.1.1 finite resources and unlimited wants1.1.1 The economy and you
1.3.1 Human nature
1.3.3 Human needs		It might be interesting to contrast the way students' mainstream textbook starts the course, with the way Regenerative Economics starts.

Challenging the assumption that human needs/wants are unlimited is very important. It's a fundamental assumption that underpins most economic models students learn about, but is highly contested.
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1.1.2 economic and free goods
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1.2 The factors of production
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1.2.1 definitions of the factors of production and
their rewards		1.1.2 The embedded economy

All of Subtopic 1.2 Ecology and the economy
1.2.1 Human-nature relationship
1.2.2 Energy basics
1.2.3 The impact of the fossil fuel energy pulse
1.2.4 Matter in the economy
1.2.5 Ecosystems: energy, interactions, stability
1.2.6 Biogeochemical flows
1.2.7 Planetary boundaries		Students need to have a better understanding of how the economy is embedded in social and ecological systems. It's not enough to just say that we use land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship as factors of production. We are completely dependent on energy and matter from Earth's systems, and are depleting these and disturbing planetary processes at such an alarming rate that we threaten our own existence. These sections provide students some understanding of basic ecology to get this point across.
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1.2.2 mobility of the factors of production
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1.2.3 quantity and quality of the factors of
production
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1.3 Opportunity cost
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1.3.1 definition of opportunity costA challenge to IGCSE content: Mainstream economics courses and their theories are based on the concept of scarcity, which assumes that resources are limited (true) and that human needs and wants are unlimited (not true, or disputed). The focus on choice, opportunity cost, PPC at the start are all based on this.

- How would an economics course differ if we based the discipline on the concept of sufficiency, rather than scarcity?

- Another approach might be to consider how the scarcity, opportinity cost, PPC framing encourages binary, rather than more complex thinking about the world.
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1.3.2 the influence of opportunity cost on decision
making
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1.4 Production possibility curve (PPC) diagrams
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1.4.1 definition of PPC
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1.4.2 points under, on and beyond a PPC
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1.4.3 movements along a PPC
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1.4.4 shifts in a PPC
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