CAS and IB economics: designing a market for Extended Essay projects.

Economics is a practical subject. The application of economics in public policy, project evaluation, and resource allocation makes its usefulness widespread. Encouraging economics students to integrate Creativity, Action and Service (CAS) can only deepen students’ appreciation of the ‘economic ways of thinking’.  

Each component of the IB CAS requirement offers students distinct opportunities to communicate and apply their economic knowledge. In many ways, the integration of CAS into economics represents the ‘best’ real-world application possible. Therefore, exploring ways to better integrate CAS into economics teaching and learning programs is important. 

Creative expression of economic concepts and principles can be a powerful means of empowering economic students. Communicating economic concepts and principals through the digital creation of podcasts, websites (with student blogs), and animation/videos can facilitate the empowerment of students to be agents of change. The economic treaties written by past generations has little appeal to many now. The use of digital modes of communication promotes leadership opportunities for economic students in speaking to peers and gives them agency to advocate for a better world. The importance of economics to poverty alleviation, corruption and good governance, and market design reveal the practical importance of economics to students and society.

The Service component of CAS provide perhaps the greatest scope to engage students in the application of economic analysis and thought. Consolidating economic knowledge and learning through direct, real-world application is an effective means of appreciating the distinction between economic theory and pragmatic realities. Appreciating the inherent compromise between the use of theory to guide policy design and the need to achieve policy objectives is an important piece of learning. Examples of possible Service include: impact evaluation of a local council/government or school project, supporting local NGOs in evaluating resource use, and creating or evaluating real-markets.  

One application of economic knowledge to real world problems helps is demonstrated in the NPR Planet Money podcast episode titled ‘Market for Pickles’ (2020). This summary of a real-world application of economics helps students to appreciate the important role of incentives and efficiency, equity, and choice; moving beyond abstract diagrams to complex social problems. 

The ’Market for Pickles’ episode outlines the creation of a market used by the US NGO ‘Food Bank’ to help solve information limitations and resource allocation inefficiencies. The limitations of central planning in the allocation of food across a large and geographically diverse organization are made clear. The market created does not use money, but tokens or credits that are allocated to local community according to need. Local Food Banks use these tokens/credits to bid on donated food items. The bidding system helps reveal the valuation that each Food Bank places on items. The relative scarcity of the tokens ensures that Food Banks are careful and thoughtful in the use of the tokens. This practical application of economics is an example of service that may be emulated by IB students in their CAS service. 

One possible application of the ‘Market for Pickles’ example, for an economics Service project, is the creation of an Extended Essay market to match students with teacher mentors. The matching of students to teachers for the Extended Essay is often done by a single person (centrally). Often, on the basis of equality between teachers; ensuring that teachers have an equal EE mentoring load. What is often overlooked are the strength of student preferences for subject and mentor, along with those of teachers and their participation in school-life. The creation of a well-designed EE matching market is likely to serve students and teachers better and create an incentivized basis for student CAS completion and teacher commitment to students’ development.   

Ultimately, a fully functional EE market will have incentives and information flows from both students and teacher. However, initially a student Service project could focus on the initial design of the student (i.e. demand) incentives and information flows. A second step would be the wider teacher (i.e. supply) side of the market. 

Demand-side

1. Students earn tokens through timely completion of their CAS requirements and other school-based criteria – incentive;
2. Schools can award additional tokens (relatively small in number) to support students who might need additional EE support;
3. Students nominate an EE subject and teacher according to rank order and strength of preference – information;
4. Students use tokens to bid for EE subject spots and teacher.

Supply-side

1. Teachers select student EE token bids – information;
2. Teachers earn student tokens according to EE bidding process – incentive (ideally such tokens would fit into a wider school system of non-classroom involvement of teachers in school-life);

The creation, trailing and evaluation of such an EE market could have a number of benefits for economic student designers, satisfaction of EE students, and the specialization of teacher involvement in school-life (including in the EE). The actual design of the EE market is highly flexible to suit school communities and thereby require high levels of student designer thought, consultation, and reflection in designing and evaluating the market. Some economic student learning benefits may include:

1. Evaluation of how value is created and measured in markets.
2. Consideration of how information is transmitted in markets and why more information is always better.
3. Demonstration of the role of incentives in fostering meaningful choice and agency in markets.
4. Evaluation of whether the benefits of labor specialization extend to teacher satisfaction and performance.
5. Consideration of how centralized intervention in a market can help and hinder accurate incentives and information flows.

For an IB subject that spends a lot of time focused on theory and the abstract, opportunities to incorporate CAS into the teaching of economics should be encouraged. Applying economic theory and principles, while solving real-world problems, is a wonderful way to create meaning for the study of economics – beyond university entrance scores. Doing so will likely help develop a generation of economic leaders who are sensitive to the strengths and weaknesses of economics in contributing to a better world.

References

Smith, R., Smith, S.V. and Goldstein, J. (2020). Market for Pickles, NPR Planet Money podcast. 15 July 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/07/15/891488686/summer-school-2-markets-pickles (Accessed: 20 November 2025)