What Makes a Good IB Economics Extended Essay Topic?

A good topic is narrow enough to analyse with one or two economic models in real depth, not so broad that you only describe. Pick a specific market, firm, policy or event, with a clear country and time frame, so you can apply theory such as elasticity or market failure to genuine, citable data.

Start broad, then add three limiters: a specific market or firm, a defined time period, and a named country or region. 'What is the impact of exchange rates on trade?' becomes 'To what extent did the 2022 depreciation of the pound affect UK car export volumes?' — testable, dated, and data-rich.

Yes, and many examiners rate microeconomics topics higher because they're naturally narrower. A single firm's pricing decision or one market's response to a tax is easier to analyse thoroughly than an entire economy. Macroeconomic topics work too, but they demand extra discipline to avoid drifting into description rather than analysis.

The strongest essays lean on one core tool used well: price elasticity of demand or supply, externalities and market failure, price discrimination, exchange rate determination, or the effect of a specific fiscal or monetary policy. Choose a theory you can genuinely apply to data — not just define in a paragraph.

The Economics EE is marked out of 34 against five generic criteria used across all DP subjects: Focus and Method (6 marks), Knowledge and Understanding (6), Critical Thinking (12), Presentation (4), and Engagement (6). According to the IB's Extended Essay guide, first assessed in 2018, Critical Thinking carries the most weight of all five.

A weak RQ asks 'What is the impact of X on Y?' — it invites description. A good RQ asks 'To what extent' or 'How effective', names a specific market, time frame and data source, and sets up genuine evaluation. Examiners reward essays that can be argued both ways, not ones with an obvious answer.

Every Extended Essay, including Economics, is capped at 4,000 words and marked out of 34. Combined with your Theory of Knowledge grade, it feeds into up to 3 additional diploma points through the EE/TOK matrix — so a strong Economics EE can genuinely lift your total score, not just look good on a transcript.

The two mistakes I see every year: choosing a topic so broad it can only be described, and collecting data but never actually using it in the analysis. A close third is treating diagrams as decoration — every AD/AS or demand-and-supply diagram should be interrogated and linked back to the real figures, not just inserted.

Yes — Criterion C, Critical Thinking, rewards essays that analyse actual figures, not hypothetical ones. If your topic is UK interest rates and mortgage approvals, you need real Bank of England rate data and real approval volumes, then a calculation — such as elasticity — to show genuine economic reasoning rather than description.

Yes, and most successful Economics EEs rely entirely on secondary data — central bank statistics, World Bank or IMF datasets, national statistics offices, or company annual reports. What matters for Criterion B and D is that every figure is properly referenced and you show you understand where the data came from and its limits.

It's not required, but it often helps — you'll understand the institutional context and usually find data faster. The risk is objectivity: if a topic is politically sensitive to you personally, it's easy to slide into opinion rather than economic analysis, and that costs marks under Critical Thinking.

Economics is one of the more reliable EE choices because official data is easy to access and theory gives a ready-made analytical framework. Business Management EEs can drift into description of one company; Geography EEs often need original fieldwork. Economics sits between the two — structured enough to guide you, open enough to argue properly.

Nothing extra, in most cases — every DP student is entitled to a school-assigned EE supervisor, with a minimum number of supervision meetings required under IB regulations. Paid external EE consultants exist, but IB rules require the essay to be the student's own work, so heavy paid editing risks an academic integrity finding. Self-study resources are the cheaper, safer route.