How to write the IB Economics IA

The Economics IA is unusual: instead of one long piece, it is a portfolio of three short commentaries, each built around a single recent news article. That structure is the whole game. Most students who underperform do so not because they cannot analyse a market, but because their three commentaries quietly overlap — two from the same section of the syllabus, two leaning on the same key concept — or because a diagram sits on the page and is never actually used. This guide explains what the portfolio is, how each commentary is marked, exactly how to write one, and what separates a top-band commentary from a forgettable one.

The discipline the portfolio demands is unusual too. You are not writing a long, exploratory essay where ideas can wander; you are writing three tight, self-contained arguments, each one under a hard 800-word ceiling. That ceiling rewards economy of expression and punishes padding. Every sentence has to earn its place, which means definitions stay brief, description is kept to the minimum needed to set up the analysis, and the bulk of the word count goes on theory applied to the article and on a judgement that actually commits to a position. Students who treat each commentary as a mini-essay — long introductions, generous background, a tour of everything they know about the topic — run out of words before they reach the evaluation, which is where a large share of the marks sit. The skill the IA is testing is selection: choosing the one market, the one diagram and the one chain of reasoning that the article genuinely supports, and leaving everything else out.

It also helps to think of the portfolio as a single coordinated project rather than three jobs done in isolation. Because the three commentaries must between them span Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and The global economy, and must each carry a different key concept, the choices you make on the first commentary constrain the next two. Planning all three at once — sketching which article will cover which section and which concept before you write a word — saves you from the most common and most avoidable failure, which is finishing two strong commentaries only to discover they both sit in the same corner of the syllabus. The sections below take each part in turn, but keep the whole portfolio in view as you read.

The IB Economics IA at a glance

The IA is a portfolio of three commentaries. Each one analyses a different recent news article — published within roughly the last year — and each is capped at 800 words and marked out of 14. The three marks combine into a portfolio score out of 45, which is worth 20% of your final grade at HL and 30% at SL. The three commentaries are not interchangeable: across the set they must cover three different sections of the syllabus — Microeconomics, Macroeconomics and The global economy — and each must apply a different key concept. Treat the portfolio as a deliberate spread, not three attempts at the same idea.

The weighting is worth dwelling on. At standard level the IA carries 30% of the entire course, which makes it the single largest piece of internally assessed work many SL students will produce — far more decisive than any one exam paper. Even at higher level, where the weighting is 20%, it remains a substantial cushion against a difficult day in the examination hall, because it is work you complete over weeks with feedback rather than under timed conditions. The practical conclusion is the same at both levels: the IA is too valuable to leave to the final fortnight. The students who score highest tend to choose and draft their commentaries across the year, as the relevant articles appear, rather than scrambling to find three usable news stories the week before the deadline.

The recency rule deserves the same care. Because each article must be published within roughly the last year, an event you read about months ago may simply have aged out by the time you submit. This is a real and recurring trap: a student finds a perfect article early, drafts a strong commentary around it, then discovers at submission that the source now sits outside the window. The safe habit is to note the publication date the moment you select an article and to keep a comfortable margin, choosing stories that will still be inside the window on the day the portfolio is handed in rather than ones that only just qualify today.

How each Economics commentary is marked

A commentary lives or dies on four things. Plan each one against all four before you start writing — and remember the coverage rules sit on top of them, governing the portfolio as a whole. The four work in sequence: the article gives you something real to explain, the diagram models it, the analysis reasons through it, and the evaluation judges it. A commentary that is strong on three but thin on the fourth rarely reaches the top band, because the criteria are designed to reward the full arc from evidence to judgement rather than any single skill in isolation. Read each of the four below not as a box to tick but as a stage your argument has to pass through.

How to write an Economics commentary, step by step

Run this method once for each of your three articles, keeping the portfolio's coverage rules in view the whole way through. The order matters: the article comes first because everything else is built on it, and the evaluation comes last because it can only weigh an analysis that already exists. Resist the temptation to start writing before you have settled the article and the diagram, since a commentary built around the wrong source is rarely salvageable by good prose later.

1. Choose three recent articles across the syllabus. Pick three different articles, each under about a year old, so the set spans Micro, Macro and Global and lets you apply three different key concepts.
2. Define the key terms. Open each commentary by defining the handful of terms its analysis depends on, taken from the article and the syllabus section it sits in.
3. Draw and explain a relevant diagram. Construct an accurate, fully labelled diagram and explain in words what it shows about the situation in the article.
4. Analyse with theory. Apply the relevant theory and terminology to the events, using the diagram to support a clear chain of reasoning — not a retelling of the news.
5. Evaluate with a judgement. Weigh short run against long run, consider the stakeholders and the model's assumptions, and reach a prioritised judgement.
6. Stay within 800 words. Hold each commentary to the 800-word cap, and confirm the three together cover three sections and three key concepts.
7. Cite the article and its date. Reference each source with its title, publication and date, and check it falls inside the recency window before you submit.

Economics IA structure: what goes in each commentary

There is no rigid template, but the clearest structure for a single commentary — repeated three times across the portfolio — is:

• Source & framing — the article title, publication and date, the syllabus section, and the key concept this commentary applies.
• Key terms — concise definitions of the terms the analysis relies on.
• Diagram — an accurate, fully labelled diagram of the market or situation in the article.
• Analysis — economic theory applied to the events, with the diagram explained and used.
• Evaluation — a prioritised judgement: short vs long run, stakeholders, assumptions.
• Word count & citation — confirmation of the 800-word limit and a full reference to the source article.

Across the three commentaries, treat the spread itself as part of the structure: one Micro, one Macro and one Global, each carrying a different key concept. A simple coverage grid kept on a single page — three rows for the commentaries, columns for the section, the key concept and the diagram used — makes it almost impossible to duplicate by accident, and lets you see at a glance whether the portfolio is balanced before you commit hours to writing.

Within each commentary, proportion matters as much as order. As a rough guide, the definitions and the framing of the article should be brief — a few sentences at most — the diagram and its explanation should occupy a solid central block, and the evaluation should be substantial enough to carry a genuine judgement rather than a hurried final line. If you find the analysis swelling to fill almost the whole commentary, leaving only a sentence or two for evaluation, the balance is wrong: the marks lost on a thin evaluation outweigh anything gained from an extra paragraph of analysis. Drafting to roughly 750 words and then trimming gives you room to protect the evaluation when you cut.

What a strong vs weak Economics commentary looks like

The quickest way to lift your marks is to see the difference. The three pairs below take the same underlying topic and show how the weak and strong versions diverge at exactly the points where marks are won and lost — the article you choose, the way the diagram is handled, and whether the evaluation reaches a verdict. Read the weak column not as a strawman but as the version most students actually write under time pressure.

The article choice

The diagram

The evaluation

Common mistakes that cost marks

• An old article. If the source falls outside the recency window, the commentary cannot score well no matter how good the analysis.
• Overlapping sections. Two commentaries from the same syllabus section means you have failed the coverage requirement.
• Repeating a key concept. Each commentary must apply a different key concept — reusing one wastes a commentary.
• A decorative diagram. A diagram that is drawn but never referred to earns almost nothing.
• Summarising, not analysing. Retelling the article instead of applying theory caps the analysis mark.
• A pros-and-cons list. Evaluation needs a judgement; a balanced list with no verdict does not.
• Going over 800 words. Anything past the limit is not read — be ruthless with definitions and description.

Economics IA — frequently asked questions

Guidance written by experienced IB examiners and aligned to the current Economics guide. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the International Baccalaureate Organization.