A coalition of organizations, the Foundation for Teaching Economics, the NCEE and its network of affiliated councils and centers, the National Association of Economic Educators, and the American Economic Association's Committee on Economic Education, has endorsed the following voluntary content standards to guide economics instruction in American schools. The twenty standards are summarized briefly in this introductory section and can be viewed in their entirety by choosing the appropriate pages. Full text of the standards has been divided into four sections to reduce the downloading time for users. Permission to copy is granted freely. Click here to download the Standards in Microsoft Word 6.0 format.
Productive resources are limited.
Effective decision making requires comparing the additional costs of alternatives with the additional benefits. People, acting individually or collectively through government, must choose which methods to use to allocate different kinds of goods and services. This is true for trade among individuals or organizations within a nation, and among individuals or organizations in different nations. When individuals, regions, and nations specialize in what they can produce at the lowest cost and then trade with others, both production and consumption increase. This interaction determines market prices and thereby allocates scarce goods and services.