- Why Article Choice Matters in the Economics IA
- The IB's Rules for Economics IA Articles
- What to Look for in a Good Economics IA Article
- A Six-Step Test Before You Commit
- The 9 IB Economics Key Concepts and How to Use Them
- Economics IA Article Ideas by Unit
- Where to Find Good Articles
- Articles That Often Cause Problems
- Common Economics IA Article Selection Mistakes
Quick Answer
Choose a short, factual news article, published within the last year, about one event or policy that sits clearly in one unit of the syllabus. You should be able to model it with at least one diagram and judge it through one of the nine key concepts. Each of your three articles must come from a different news source and cover a different unit: microeconomics, macroeconomics and the global economy.
What You'll Learn
- Articles must come from published news media and be published no earlier than one year before you write the commentary
- You need three different sources and three different units: Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and The global economy
- Pick the key concept and the diagram before you commit to the article
- Short, factual reports with data beat long pieces that already contain expert economic analysis
- Each commentary must use a different one of the nine key concepts
Why Article Choice Matters in the Economics IA
The article sets the ceiling for your commentary. Three of the 45 marks (criterion F) depend directly on whether your articles meet the rules on unit, source and date. The other criteria depend on whether the article gives you something to model, analyse and judge. A good article describes one economic event or policy, contains some data, and leaves the economics for you to do. A poor one is vague, too broad, or already full of an expert's analysis, which leaves you summarising rather than thinking.
Pro Tip
Test an article before you write a word: if you cannot name the unit, the key concept and the diagram in one sentence, keep looking.
The IB's Rules for Economics IA Articles
These rules come from the current Economics guide, first assessed in 2022, which applies to exams in 2026 and 2027. Breaking the first three costs marks under criterion F.
- Published news media only: a newspaper, a journal or the internet, but not a TV or radio broadcast
- Published no earlier than one year before the date you write the commentary
- A different source for each of the three commentaries
- One article each from Unit 2 Microeconomics, Unit 3 Macroeconomics and Unit 4 The global economy, never Unit 1
- You must find the article yourself: your teacher must not give an article to the class
- Another student may use the same article, but your commentary must be your own individual work
- Lengthy articles are discouraged. If you use one, highlight the sections your commentary is based on
- If the article is in a different language from your commentary, include the original and an accurate translation of the whole article
Watch Out
Two articles from the same publication count as one source, even if they appear in different sections. Check your three sources side by side before you start writing.
What to Look for in a Good Economics IA Article
The most useful articles are factual reports about a specific policy, decision or market change, with enough detail to show cause and effect.
- One clear issue that sits in one unit of the syllabus
- A change you can show on a diagram, such as a new tax, a price cap, an interest rate decision or a tariff
- Some data: prices, quantities, rates, percentages or forecasts you can use in your explanation
- Stakeholders who are affected in different ways, which gives you material for evaluation
- An obvious link to one key concept, such as equity for a rent cap or sustainability for a green subsidy
- Short enough that you can analyse it fully in 800 words, ideally a few hundred words of reporting
A Six-Step Test Before You Commit
Run every candidate article through these checks. It takes ten minutes and saves you from discovering halfway through a draft that the article cannot carry 800 words of analysis.
- 1Unit: which unit does the core issue belong to, and is it a unit you have not used yet?
- 2Theory: which specific theory explains what is happening? Name it, for example price elasticity of demand or the AD/AS model.
- 3Diagram: can you draw a diagram that shows the change described, and explain every part of it using the article?
- 4Key concept: which of the nine concepts fits best, and is it one you have not used in another commentary?
- 5Evaluation: are there trade-offs, uncertain effects or stakeholders who gain and lose? If the outcome is obvious, evaluation will be thin.
- 6Rules: is the article from a new source, published within the last year, and available in full so you can include a copy?
Pro Tip
Save three or four articles for each unit. If your first choice fails a step, you can move on without starting your search again.
The 9 IB Economics Key Concepts and How to Use Them
Every commentary must use one key concept as the lens for its analysis, and criterion D (3 marks per commentary) rewards how fully you explain the link between that concept and the article. The nine concepts are below, with the kind of article each tends to suit.
- Scarcity: limited resources forcing hard choices, such as water shortages, housing supply or a shortage of skilled workers
- Choice: decisions by consumers, firms or governments and their opportunity costs, such as households cutting spending as prices rise
- Efficiency: whether resources are allocated well, such as market power after a merger or waste in a subsidised industry
- Equity: fairness in the distribution of income, wealth or the burden of a policy, such as a regressive tax or a minimum wage rise
- Economic well-being: living standards and quality of life, such as falling real wages or rising unemployment in a region
- Sustainability: meeting present needs without harming future generations, such as carbon taxes or subsidies for renewable energy
- Change: how economies and markets adjust over time, such as a shift to electric vehicles or the effects of automation
- Interdependence: links between economic agents and countries, such as a trade dispute or a supply chain disruption
- Intervention: government action in markets or the economy, such as price controls, indirect taxes or interest rate changes
Watch Out
Name the concept early, link it to the article in your analysis and return to it in your evaluation. A concept that is named but never really linked to the article sits in the lowest band of criterion D, and a concept you have already used in another commentary scores 0.
Economics IA Article Ideas by Unit
Use these as search ideas, not as a list of approved topics. The best article is a specific, recent report on one of them. The suggested concepts are only starting points: the strongest choice depends on what your article emphasises.
- Microeconomics: a tax on sugary drinks, tobacco or vaping products (intervention, economic well-being)
- Microeconomics: a rent cap or energy price cap (equity, intervention)
- Microeconomics: a subsidy for electric vehicles, heat pumps or farmers (sustainability, intervention)
- Microeconomics: a minimum price for alcohol or a minimum wage rise (equity, intervention)
- Microeconomics: a poor harvest or supply shock pushing up a food price (scarcity, change)
- Macroeconomics: a central bank raising or cutting interest rates (intervention, change)
- Macroeconomics: inflation squeezing household budgets (economic well-being, equity)
- Macroeconomics: a government stimulus, infrastructure plan or tax cut (intervention, change)
- Macroeconomics: rising unemployment after a factory closure or downturn (economic well-being)
- The global economy: new tariffs or a trade dispute (interdependence, intervention)
- The global economy: a currency falling sharply against the US dollar (change, interdependence)
- The global economy: a trade agreement, foreign direct investment or aid project in a developing economy (interdependence, sustainability, economic well-being)
Pro Tip
Local and national news often works better than global headlines. A report on one city's rent controls gives you a precise market to model, while a sweeping piece on the world economy usually does not.
Where to Find Good Articles
Mainstream news sources are the safest choice: national and regional newspapers and established news websites. Be careful with specialist economics publications. Their articles often contain the analysis you are supposed to provide, which leaves you little room to show your own understanding. You also need the full text to include in your portfolio, so check that you can access and save the whole article.
- 1Search a news site or a news search engine with syllabus terms, such as price ceiling, indirect tax, interest rates, tariff or exchange rate
- 2Filter results to the past few months so the date rule is never in doubt
- 3Skim for a clear mechanism: a cause, an economic change and an effect on someone
- 4Save the article as a PDF with its publication date visible, and note the date you accessed it
- 5Keep a log of each article's source so you never repeat a publication
Articles That Often Cause Problems
Some articles seem promising but produce weak commentaries because they are too vague, too broad or already analysed for you.
- Opinion columns and editorials that argue a case with little factual reporting
- Explainer pieces by economists that already apply the theory and weigh up the effects
- Articles covering several unrelated issues, which push you into summary
- Very short news briefs with no data or context to analyse
- Stories about an event with no clear economic mechanism, such as a company's leadership drama
- Articles older than a year, or ones you may not write about until after the year is up
- Pieces that fit two units so evenly that you cannot commit to one body of theory
Watch Out
If you need several paragraphs of background just to make the article usable, it is probably the wrong article.
Common Economics IA Article Selection Mistakes
These mistakes weaken commentaries before the writing starts. If you are unsure how to judge whether an article will support a strong commentary, an IB Economics tutor can teach you the test on practice articles; the choice of your own articles stays yours.
- Choosing an article because the topic sounds interesting rather than because it can be modelled and evaluated
- Picking the article first and only later discovering there is no suitable diagram
- Planning the key concept after writing, then finding you have used it already
- Using two articles from the same publication
- Leaving months between finding the article and writing the commentary
- Choosing a long feature article and analysing all of it instead of one focused issue
- Selecting an article for the global economy unit that is really about domestic inflation or unemployment