By Deren Karausta (BSc Economics) and Dr Emiliya Lazarova
The end of August every year is the time when many 18-year-old young adults in England finalize their decisions on whether to go to university, and, if so, what to study there. That choice, one would expect, is largely determined by the A-levels they had sat and the grades they had achieved. At the School of Economics of the UEA we receive applications from prospective students from around the country with diverse backgrounds in terms of their A-level subjects: from Physics and Biology to Drama and History. This is not surprising at all as we, at UEA, just like many other departments of Economics in the UK, do not require specific A-level subjects for enrolment on our courses. Among the wide range of A-level subjects with which first-year students begin their university journey in Economics, however, a significant share is represented by A level Economics. This raises the question what drives the uptake of A-level Economics: is it the passion for the subject, the higher education opportunities, or the career prospects? Is it the availability of well-qualified A-level teachers, the accessibility of study materials, or the complementarity with other popular subjects?
As trained economists, we recognize that there are two fundamental forces at play here: the demand for, and the supply of A-level Economics. In this article, we set ourselves the task to collect evidence that will allow us to shed more light on the determinants of the number of students studying A-level Economics over the past twenty years.
The Demand side
We begin our demand-side study of A-level Economics by looking at the historical data on the number of students who have sat A-level Economics between 2001 to 2020. We compare these numbers with the data for A-level Business Studies. Economics and Business Studies are an interesting comparison to make as these two subjects are likely to be seen as leading to employment opportunities in similar sectors (financial services and other large corporations), and they both require and teach similar skills. Given their similarities, these two subjects may be either substitutes or complements. A substitute subject is one that can be taken in place of another subject. This means that a student may replace A-level Economics with Business Studies, or vice versa, instead of studying the two subjects together. This could be because students believe the subjects serve the same purpose, and so they add marginally less value to their academic portfolio, compared to studying either subject or other ones in different fields. Given the importance of A-level subjects to further education and employment destinations, students may want to diversify their portfolio of subjects to broaden the range of university courses or employment opportunities they may access. Conversely, a subject that is complementary is one that may be studied alongside another to build a stronger portfolio. For instance, suppose students study A-level Business Studies and Economics together because they believe the subjects have greater value when studied together. This may be because to do well in one you have to have the same skills and knowledge as to do well in the other. Thus, a student may think they will have an overall higher attainment if they do two very similar subjects.
Given that we have no access to data on the combinations of A level subjects chosen by each student, we can only investigate whether Economics and Business Studies may be seen as complements or substitutes based on the aggregate evidence at our disposal. The bar graph above shows that A-level Economics has seen a gradual increase in student numbers from the year 2001 to 2020. While Business Studies have seen a decrease in numbers in the beginning of the period (2001-2014), it has seen a steeper increase in the second part (2015-2020). This inverse correlation across 2001-2014 is suggestive of a substitutionary relationship between A-level Economics and A-level Business Studies. However, more recent years (2014-2020) show that the numbers of students studying Economics and Business Studies have been moving in the same direction. This reversal in the uptake of Business Studies could suggest that student’s perception on the two subjects has shifted. Intuitively, students may no longer believe that A-level Economics and Business Studies show similarities in terms of content and employment opportunities.
To quantify this, we have calculated the pairwise correlation between Economics and Business Studies from 2001-2014 and 2014-2020. The correlation from 2001-2014 is -0.68 which clearly shows the two subjects demand are moving in opposite directions, while the correlation from 2014-2020 is 0.96. This positive correlation between Economics and Business Studies in recent years could support the point that the power of these ‘substitute’ subjects has been lost.
One reason for this Business Studies reversal could be down to the government announcement in 2014 of a reform in all A-level qualifications (GOV.UK, 2014). This was an announcement that A-levels will become more rigorous, making it harder for students to achieve high grades. In this announcement they highlighted substantial changes to the A-level economic curriculum; updating content so that it was based around the latest topics – for example, financial regulation and the role of central banks. This change in curriculum could have stimulated a change in the way students perceive Economics and Business Studies. For example, a change in content to more macroeconomic and regulatory aspects could reduce the perceived similarity between Economics and Business Studies. Ultimately, it could simply be the case that more students are not studying A-level Economics and Business Studies together; however, this is not certain from the data so far.
To get a clearer picture, we need to control for the cohort size of A-level students. For that purpose, we use data from The Joint Council for Qualifications and construct the following graph showing the percentage of students taking A-level Economics and Business Studies as a share of the overall number of A-levels exam sat each year.
From the graph above we can see, as a percentage of all A-levels, Economics and Business Studies have a similar share in 2013-2015, compared to a difference of over 2% in 2001. Since 2015 Business Studies has been increasing its share of A-level students at a higher rate than the increase that Economics has seen and the gap is widening again.
This data gives us a good representation of the demand for A-level Economics. We can now look at the determinants of this demand and ask ourselves why students would substitute Economics with Business Studies or vice versa?
Attainment
We use data from the Joint Council for Qualifications of the A-level results for both Economics and Business Studies, combining them in a two-way graph representing the actual level of attainment for each subject. On the left-hand side (LHS) of the graph, we show the percentage split of each grade, on the right-hand side (RHS) we show the average grade based upon the tariff score shown below. It is evident on the graph that the grade A* was first introduced in 2010 in the UK.
| A-Level Grade | UCAS POINTS |
| A* | 56 |
| A | 48 |
| B | 40 |
| C | 32 |
| D | 24 |
| E | 16 |
| U | 0 |
The two graphs below suggest that the level of attainment is, on average, higher for A-level Economics than A-level Business Studies. We can see that Economics has higher average results by over 2 tariff points for every year between 2000-2020. The lowest difference in tariff scores was in 2001, when Economics had a higher average result score by 2.55 tariff points. The highest difference was in 2010, when Economics had a higher average result score by 4.97 tariff points.
Another important observation is that in the year 2009, A-level Business Studies saw a peak in the highest grade (A) of 18.80%. However, Economics saw a 20-year low in the percentage of high grades, of 17.90%. This is notably during the years of the financial crisis which could be an explanation for this anomaly in results. For instance, in these years there was a lot of uncertainty over employment – with 4% of the education workforce losing their job in the UK (GOV.UK, 2014). As a result, these job losses could indicate a loss of high-quality teachers in this year, which is a potential explanation for this sudden drop in high grades for Economics students. Additionally, the financial crisis and recession that followed could explain why both subjects saw a decline in high grades (grade A and A*) from 2009 until 2016 – because both subjects were still suffering the consequences of this education workforce shock. Finally, in 2020, Business Studies gained some ground on Economics for the average grade (RHS), shown by a score of 37.81 (grade C/B) compared with 41.03 for economics (grade B/A).
The evidence on attainment cannot be interpreted to say that any student would have a higher chance to obtain a higher grade if they were to study A-level Economics instead of A-level Business Studies. We need to remember that students self-select into the subject based on their strengths and aspirations. This is further supported by the academic literature. Reilly and Bachan (2005) use statistical methods and find that if a sample of A-level Business Studies candidates studied Economics, 40% would achieve a grade C or above. When they do the reverse exercise, these authors find that 12% more A-level Economics candidates would have achieved grade C or above if they were to take A-level Business Studies instead. Finally, they concluded that A-level Economics should have an upwards adjustment of 1.5 UCAS points per grade, to account for the increase in difficulty. Similar messages are being sent in the popular press. A recent article in the Telegraph, for example, suggests that A-level Economics is more difficult to study compared with Business Studies (Josie Gurney-Read, 2021). This perception is shared by many students in forums that perceive economics as the more “challenging” subject of the two (The Student Room 2021).
However, as we have described in the graphs above, the level of achievement is higher for students who study A-level Economics compared with Business Studies. Of course, this may be based purely on self-selection where the more motivated and better prepared are self-selecting into Economics. We cannot rule out, however, that a misperception of the possible attainment for this subject creates a barrier to its study for some.
Moreover, articles like the ones above do not measure the difference in A-level teacher quality between Economics and Business Studies. It may be the case that Economics is more difficult, but the teachers are of a higher quality compared to those teaching Business Studies. This would explain why students are consistently achieving higher results in Economics compared to Business, despite the students’ perception of its difficulty. The importance of teacher availability and quality are aspects that need investigation under the supply-side perspective on A-level Economics. So, we will come back to this question later. Before we do that, however, we want to investigate the opportunities open for those that study A-level Economics.
We can conclude this section by stating that a key factor that seems to determine students demand for A-level Economics is the level of attainment in comparison to other subjects or at least their expectations about attainment. Next, we explore another factor that can potentially affect the level of demand for A-level Economics, which is the level of opportunities it brings compared to Business Studies.
Opportunities
Naturally, students select their A-level subjects based on many different factors. Personal preferences, aspirations and employment opportunities after completion all impact on these choices, beyond higher education prospects. Finding evidence of the importance of the former is difficult at best. We can provide some measure of the latter, however, by investigating the entry requirements (e.g. tariff) and course availability across the HE sector in the UK. We can argue that high entry requirements may divert some demand away from one subject and onto another which has lower requirements but overall comparable employment prospects. Moreover, lower entry requirements could signal accessibility for a wider range of students.
We have collected data from UK universities on the entry requirements for economics- and business-related degrees. We split the universities into two groups: those that require A-level maths to study economics and those that don’t. This data comes from the 70 universities among the top 100 in the country that offer both economics and business degrees (see thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk, 2021). The entry requirements have been converted from three A-level grades to tariff points, using the following tariff table. For example, a requirement of (AAA) is equivalent to a tariff of 144 (48+48+48=144).
Pie charts A and B show that economics degrees that do not require Maths have higher entry requirements than Business degrees. This is shown by 9.52% of universities requiring 140+ for Economics degrees, compared to 2.38% of the same universities requiring 140+ for Business degrees. Also, graphs C and D show that Economics degrees that require maths have significantly higher entry requirements than the same universities that offer Business degrees. To quantify this, 46.43% of universities require 140+ for Economics degrees, compared with 28.57% of Business degrees. Furthermore, no university accepts students with a tariff lower than 80 on their Economics degrees, whereas 3.57% of institutions in our sample have such requirements for Business degrees. These high entry requirements represent a clear barrier to access Economics courses and could explain why demand for Economics is being shifted towards Business Studies.
It should be highlighted, however, that none of the universities in our survey require that applicants have taken A-level Economics. Instead, many universities require A-level Maths to study an Economics degree. So, studying A-level Economics (or Business Studies) is not necessary to study Economics (or Business Studies) in a top 100 university in the UK, which points to a seeming disconnect between A-levels and university degrees. Economics as a subject is not unusual in this respect, however.
The Uni Guide (2018) listed the most common degrees that required a specific A-level subject, these include: Pharmacy degrees, that must have A-level Chemistry and at least one other A-level from Biology, Maths, and Physics. English Literature or Language degrees may require A-level English Literature, or Language, or both. A Geology or Earth Science degree requires at least two A-levels from Maths, Physics, Chemistry, or Biology. Finally, a Medicine degree requires Chemistry, Biology, and either Maths or Physics. It is also important to note that to study Economics at degree level, no courses across the UK require you to study Economics or Business Studies. Having said that, students who have taken A-level Economics have 1 in 5 chance of studying it at degree level, compared with students who haven’t studied A-level Economics, having 1 in 150 chance of studying it at degree level (Advani Sen and Warwick, 2021).
Inclusion of other studies
For the sake of completeness, we want to point to two other studies that look at the factors that determine the demand for A-level Economics. Advani et al. (2021) conducted a study for the Institute for Fiscal studies and recognised that “among those who study economics: women and state school pupils are much less likely to choose the subject at university”. This article investigates the demand for A-level Economics based on gender and socio-economic status, which is important to acknowledge. Another article published in the Institution for Fiscal Studies investigates the level of females choosing to study all STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) subjects (Cassidy et al. 2018). This article recognises that all STEM subjects are male dominated, meaning this may be more than just an Economics issue. Finally, we can draw attention to a study that recognised the influence of parental backgrounds on A-level decisions (Bachan and Barrow, 2016). In this study, they conducted a regression analysis showing the effect of parental characteristics on A-level decisions. The authors found that the demand for A-level Economics is partly affected by the profession an individual’s parent does. This trend was stronger for A-level Economics compared to Business Studies, showing an important demand side determinant.
The Supply Side
As argued above, to get a full picture of the state of A-level economics we need not only to study the demand by students who choose to take the subject, but we also need to investigate the factors that determine the provision of A-level economics. The supply side of A-level economics can be measured by the number of schools offering them (sub-categorised into school type), the number of teachers that decide to teach this subject each year, and the number of courses across the UK that allow people to become an Economics Teacher.
Supply of A-levels by school type
Our data come from the Cambridge Assessment (2021) statistical reports on the provision of A-levels by subject. The provision of A-levels is measured as the percentage of schools with at least one student taking the subject. This data is sourced from the national pupil database (NPD) and has been collected for comprehensive schools (public), independent schools (private), and grammar schools. The data have been collected in the year 2004 and then in the period from 2010 to 2017.
One clear trend in graph A is that for all schools, the supply of A-level economics has been rising over the 13-year period. For example, 17.20% of comprehensive schools offered economics in 2004, compared with 50.40% in 2017. Also, 11.6% of independent schools offered economics in 2004, compared with 77% in 2017. Finally, 14.10% of grammar schools offered economics in 2004, compared with 82.60% in 2017.
Graph B shows that the provision of A-level business studies has risen from 2004 to 2010 for all school types. Since 2010, however, the percentage of grammar schools offering this subject has fallen from 74.40% to 47.80% in 2017. For independent schools, the proportion of schools offering A-level business studies is relatively stable: 62.90% offered business studies in 2010, compared to 60.90% in 2017. Finally, 57.50% of comprehensive schools offered business studies in 2010, compared to 53.60% in 2017, which indicates a slight decline. This data shows that all schools saw a decline in the provision of A-level business studies from 2010 to 2017.
Although A-level economics or business studies is not required to study economics (or business studies) at university, A-level Mathematics is a requirement for many economics courses in top UK universities. As we can see in graph C the provision of A-level maths is very high over the 13-year period, with grammar schools having the highest level of provision. The proportion of independent schools that offer A-level maths is increasing for most of the period, however, the provision in grammar and comprehensive schools is fluctuating.
Overall, we can take away some key points from these three graphs. The supply of A-level Economics is highest among grammar school and it has been increasing among all school types in the period 2010-2019. Compared, to A-level Economics, A-level Business Studies has seen an overall decline for all schools (from the period of 2010 to 2017). This may suggest that all schools are starting to value Economics increasingly more in these years in comparison to Business Studies. This information signals to us that schools are substituting the supply of A-level Business Studies with Economics; although, this is by no means certain, based on the data we have available. We have now explored the supply of schools offering A-levels. This increase in A-level Economics provision must have been met by an increase in qualified A-level teachers of Economics. Next, we look at the supply of teachers becoming an A-level teacher, and at the potential factors influencing their decision.
The process of becoming an A-level teacher
To understand the data, we need to first explain the process of becoming a qualified A-level teacher in England. To be a qualified A-level teacher, one must complete a programme of Initial Teacher Training (ITT) which involves practice-based teaching and mentoring. If this ITT is successful, it leads to the award of a Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). The main pathway into teaching includes an undergraduate degree (three- or four-year courses), and a postgraduate route (one year). Once the postgraduate level is completed, a teacher is awarded the QTS and a Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE).
We have taken data from GOV.UK and created a graph below showing the number of Postgraduate new entrants for business and economics (due to the small numbers, disaggregated data are not available), compared with Maths in the past 5 years. Each bar represents the annual target while the blue area represents the real number of new entrants. If the number of new entrants is below the target, the shortage is coloured in orange, and if the number of new entrants is above the target, the excess is coloured in red.
It is clear that the number of new Economics and Business teachers is much lower than the number of new Maths teachers. For example, from the years 2015-2019, the number of new entrants on postgraduate ITT courses was ten times larger for Maths, than in economics and business combined (both in absolute terms and relative to target). In 2015, the business and economics new entrants accounted for 63.90% of the target, compared to maths new entrants which accounted for 95.00% of the annual target. However, in 2020 Economics and Business exceeded the target by 2.27%, compared with a shortfall in Maths where only about 85% of the annual target was reached. In addition, as seen in both graphs, there is a decline in new entrants from 2015 to 2019, then a larger increase in new entrants in 2020.
| PGCE Course | Location |
| Business Studies with Economics | Milton Keynes |
| Economics | London |
| Economics | Kent |
| Economics | Suffolk |
| Business Studies with Economics | Staffordshire |
| Economics | Kent |
| Economics | London |
| Business Studies with Economics | Milton Keynes |
| Mathematics with Economics | Manchester |
| Business with Economics | Worcester |
From this information, it is difficult to identify if fewer than desirable individuals choose to become qualified A-level teachers or there are other barriers to access. To explore the latter, we have also collected data on all the current PGCE courses in the UK for Economics.
As we can see in the map above, all the courses are based in England and more specifically, most Economics PGCE courses are in the southeast of England. To put this into context, 10, the number of PGCE Economics courses across the whole of the UK, compares to 55 separate PGCE Mathematics courses in the UK (FindAMasters, 2021). Furthermore, the courses that are solely Economics are all grouped together, shown by the colour red. This suggest to us that an individual located in the north of the UK, who would like to become an Economics teacher, will be required to travel long distances to complete one of these courses. This could act as a potential barrier to the supply of A-level Economics teachers. Supporting this, the entry requirements for these PGCE courses require a degree is a ‘relevant field’. This means that to study any of these ten courses, you must have completed an undergraduate degree in either: Economics, Business Studies or Maths (UCAS, 2021). This means that you can become an A-level Economics teacher without studying the subject as an undergraduate. From this information, we could suggest that these three subjects act as substitutes in their supply. Intuitively, an aspiring A-level teacher may substitute teaching Economics, with Business Studies or Mathematics because of regional factors such as convenience of location or funding opportunities.
To investigate this point further, we looked for scholarly evidence. A study by Donnelly and Gamsu (2018) investigates the effects of social, ethnic, and spatial inequalities on student mobility in the UK. In this study they found that most students stay local for university (55.8%). Another important finding was that only 10 students out of 150 attend university over 150 miles away, and more notably, these students come from distinct social, ethnic, and geographical groups. This is important to us as it shows that student mobility is dependent on the geographical distance from their home. This confirms our argument that students located in the North of the UK are less likely to travel to any universities on our map, only Manchester (in green). Therefore, this could lead to students substituting PGCE degrees in economics for more easily accessible ones such as maths (which has 55 universities located across the UK).
Our investigation led us to identify another factor that would divert demand away from PGCE Economics and into other teacher qualification degrees accessible to graduates of Economics and this is the bursaries available in other subjects. A bursary is a monetary reward given by a university to assist with costs of their studies, which does not have to be paid back. On the UK government website, they state that there are no bursaries available for PGCE’s in Economics, but they have ones for £24,000 in Maths (GetintoTeaching, GOV.UK, 2021). Also, if you are enrolled on a PGCE in Maths you may be eligible for a ‘Troops to Teachers’ bursary of £40,000, which is not available for a PGCE in Economics. This large difference in financial support could prevent teachers from taking PGCE’s in Economics and encourage them to substitute it with a PGCE in Maths instead.
Additional studies for supply-side teaching
We can now draw attention to additional studies to get a broader understanding of the supply side of A-level teaching in the UK. Firstly, an article published in ‘The Conversation’ addressed a proposed reform in the teaching system for teacher training to happen within schools, as opposed to universities (Clarke and Parker, 2021). In their article Clarke and Parker highlight the risks of destabilising the whole education system as teachers are encouraged to make decisions about their pupils based on ‘what has worked for others’, compared to using their own judgement on individual pupils. This unidirectional pathway is important for us to consider as it could change the process of becoming a teacher – evidently impacting the demand to be a teacher. To support this point, Bruinsma and Jansen (2010) wrote an article about the motives to become a teacher – suggesting that intrinsic motivation (without an obvious reward) was equally, if not more important, than extrinsic motivation (monetary benefits). Therefore, this proposed new teaching programme could reduce the intrinsic motivation to become an A-level teacher, with the ‘one fits all’ plan. This is because teachers in this article express their love for teaching (intrinsic motivation) through helping students develop as individuals, so, a change in the individuality of teaching could shock the supply side of teaching negatively.
Conclusion
Our investigation revealed a lot about the demand and supply side of A-level Economics. For instance, we recognise that students have been substituting A-level Economics and Business Studies from the years 2001-2014, but this relationship has become less notable in recent years. Furthermore, we can suggest that the level of attainment and opportunities are key factors that have influenced students demand for A-level Economics and their elasticity to substitute it with other subjects. Overall, we notice the demand for A-level Economics is gradually increasing relative to other subjects. But, in future research it would be interesting to break down this demand further by ethnic groups and socioeconomic status. Doing this would help us understand which sub-categories of A-level Economics demand are falling behind, in comparison to stronger ones. In addition to the demand side, we have been able to find some important supply-side conclusions for A-level Economics that have not been previously identified in past research. For example, the in the years 2015 to 2019, the number of new teachers aspiring to be A-level Economic teachers is well below the annual target and very low in actual numbers. Supporting this, in the UK there are very few courses for PGCE’s in Economics (only 10), which could suggest that the supply for teaching courses is relatively deficient compared to courses for a PGCE in Maths. Finally, we noticed that PGCE’s for Economics have the same entry requirements as Maths and Business Studies, which includes an undergraduate degree in a ‘relevant’ subject. This information confirms our suggestion that aspiring teachers could substitute away from Economics and towards a subject that is more geographically available or has more funding opportunities. Finally, another recommendation for future research is to find the geographical locations of all schools offering A-level Economics. We have found most Economics teachers will complete PGCE courses in the southeast of England – is it the case that A-level economics teachers are underprovided in the North of England?
Yet the bigger question that still stands unanswered is what motivates A-level students to take A-level Economics and how doing that prepares them better for their future.
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