ECON1102 Macroeconomics 1
The Complete Exam Bible · T2 2026ECON1102 Overview
- UNSW Business School — School of Economics
- Term 2, 2026
- 6 units of credit (UoC)
Within UNSW Business School — School of Economics, ECON1102 Macroeconomics 1 builds, model by model, the first-year macro toolkit — national accounts and the CPI/GDP-deflator measures of inflation, labour-market data and Okun's law, the saving–investment market that sets the real interest rate, the Keynesian income–expenditure model and its multiplier, fiscal deficits and public debt, money and bank balance sheets, central banks and monetary policy, AD–AS, and open-economy exchange rates and growth — and then makes students run each model against real Australian data.
- ECON1102 grading 50% final exam, 25% in-session tests (two × 12.5%), 15% project (SAQ), 10% in-tutorial problem sets (best 4 of 5 assessed submissions)
- ECON1102 task mode In-session tests: online in Moodle, 25 minutes, 15 MCQs, OPEN BOOK (notes, lecture slides, textbook, tutorial materials), started any time between 3:00pm and 6:05pm on Friday 3 July (Week 5, Chapters 1–4) and Friday 31 July (Week 9, Chapters 5–7); auto-submitted when time runs out. All assessments carry Generative AI No Assistance. Check the current ECON1102 course site and official timetable for any remaining sitting conditions.
- ECON1102 mark trap The examinable surface is deliberately wider than the lecture slides, and the tests are cumulative in a way students underestimate. The outline states Not all examinable material is covered in lectures. Lecture material is supplemented by required reading and the material covered in the tutorial program and The examinable content of the course is determined by all the material covered during classes, the activities undertaken during classes, the assigned readings, any practice materials and exercises. The Week 9 test page spells the trap out: In-Session Test 2 covers all the topics covered in Chapters 5 to 7 of the e-book.
- ECON1102 pass rule In order to pass this course students must: Achieve a composite mark of at least 50 out of 100; Engage actively in course learning activities and attempt all assessment requirements; Meet any additional requirements specified in the assessment details; Meet the specified attendance requirements of the course (see Schedule section) (course outline, Requirements to pass course). The Attendance Requirements section itself reads Students are strongly encouraged to attend all classes and review lecture recordings. A de facto attendance gate sits on the 10%: Students who miss the tutorial will not be able to submit it.
How ECON1102 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Problem Sets | 10% | Individual |
| In-session Tests | 25% | Individual |
| Project | 15% | Individual |
| Final Exam | 50% | Invigilated on-campus final assessment |
The current Course Outline publishes a 10/25/15/50 structure. The Final Exam covers the course; confirm permitted resources and the official timetable in current UNSW systems.
What ECON1102 covers
Build the course in three arcs: National Accounts, GDP and Inflation establishes the frame, Money, Banks and Balance-Sheet Logic deepens it, and Project and Final-Exam Integration tests the complete method.
National Accounts, GDP and Inflation
nominal and real GDP · price indices · growth and inflation rates · measure output and prices consistently before interpreting a change in economic activity02Labour-Market Data and Models
labour force · unemployment rate · participation and flows · separate population categories from the behavioural flows that change unemployment03Interest Rates, Saving and Investment
real interest rate · national saving · investment demand · use the loanable-funds mechanism to connect saving behaviour with investment and the equilibrium real rate04Income-Expenditure Model and Multiplier
planned expenditure · equilibrium output · multiplier process · solve for equilibrium output and explain how induced consumption propagates an autonomous change05Fiscal Policy, Deficits and Public Debt
government budget balance · automatic and discretionary change · debt dynamics · distinguish the initial fiscal action from multiplier effects and longer-run debt consequences06Money, Banks and Balance-Sheet Logic
bank balance sheets · deposit creation · liquidity and solvency · trace a transaction through assets and liabilities before claiming an effect on money or credit07Central Banks and Monetary Policy
policy instrument · transmission channels · inflation-output trade-offs · follow a policy-rate decision through financial conditions, spending and aggregate outcomes08Aggregate Demand and Aggregate Supply
aggregate demand · short-run aggregate supply · long-run capacity · locate a shock, shift the correct curve and distinguish short-run adjustment from long-run outcome09Open Economy, Exchange Rates and Growth
nominal and real exchange rates · net exports and capital flows · productivity-led growth · connect currency movements and long-run growth drivers without collapsing short-run adjustment into trend growth10Project and Final-Exam Integration
model selection · diagram-to-prose translation · assumption control · choose the model that matches the shock, show each causal link and end with a conditional economic judgementIt is Undergraduate, introductory (no previous study of economics assumed). It carries 6 units of credit (UoC).
It is positioned as Core requirement for all students in the Bachelor of Economics, and a core prerequisite for all upper-level macroeconomics courses.
Marks come from four genuinely different modes rather than one exam style: 50% is an invigilated on-campus final over the entire course, 25% sits in two 25-minute OPEN-BOOK online MCQ tests of 15 questions each (started any time in a 3-hour Friday window in Weeks 5 and 9), 15% is a written Short Answer Question 'Project' built from a supplied Income & Wealth spreadsheet plus an RBA article on labour and capital shares, and 10% can only be earned by physically turning up to the tutorial with a laptop and submitting a live data exercise on the spot — 'Only students who attend the tutorial may submit the data exercise problem set.' Every single assessment is Generative AI 'No Assistance'.
Assessment in ECON1102 is distributed as follows: 50% final exam, 25% in-session tests (two × 12.5%), 15% project (SAQ), 10% in-tutorial problem sets (best 4 of 5 assessed submissions)
The operational assessment conditions matter here.
In-session tests: online in Moodle, 25 minutes, 15 MCQs, OPEN BOOK (notes, lecture slides, textbook, tutorial materials), started any time between 3:00pm and 6:05pm on Friday 3 July (Week 5, Chapters 1–4) and Friday 31 July (Week 9, Chapters 5–7); auto-submitted when time runs out. All assessments carry Generative AI No Assistance.
Check the current ECON1102 course site and official timetable for any remaining sitting conditions.
What makes ECON1102 demanding is concrete: The examinable surface is deliberately wider than the lecture slides, and the tests are cumulative in a way students underestimate. The outline states Not all examinable material is covered in lectures.
Lecture material is supplemented by required reading and the material covered in the tutorial program and The examinable content of the course is determined by all the material covered during classes, the activities undertaken during classes, the assigned readings, any practice materials and exercises.
The Week 9 test page spells the trap out: In-Session Test 2 covers all the topics covered in Chapters 5 to 7 of the e-book.
In order to pass this course students must: Achieve a composite mark of at least 50 out of 100; Engage actively in course learning activities and attempt all assessment requirements; Meet any additional requirements specified in the assessment details; Meet the specified attendance requirements of the course (see Schedule section) (course outline, Requirements to pass course).
The Attendance Requirements section itself reads Students are strongly encouraged to attend all classes and review lecture recordings.
A de facto attendance gate sits on the 10%: Students who miss the tutorial will not be able to submit it.
For enrolment planning, No formal prerequisite — 'No previous study of economics is assumed although being familiar with the concepts introduced in ECON1101 (Microeconomics 1) is recommended.'
Build the course in three arcs: National Accounts, GDP and Inflation establishes the frame, Money, Banks and Balance-Sheet Logic deepens it, and Project and Final-Exam Integration tests the complete method.
Worked example: Macroeconomics 1 integrated response
- 1Mark the starting condition or object represented by aggregate demand.
- 1Write the change, rule or mechanism supplied by labour force as a verb-led link.
- 1Show how that link reaches model selection; do not skip an intermediate actor, quantity or stage.
- 1Answer the task with the completed chain and preserve this limit: Practice tasks here are asksia-authored and do not reproduce the current project or final exam.
Key terms
- GDP deflator vs Consumer Price Index (CPI), and real vs nominal (chain volume) GDP
- The GDP deflator prices domestically produced final output, while CPI prices a consumer basket; nominal GDP uses current prices and real or chain-volume GDP removes price change to track production volume.
- Labour force, participation rate, and frictional vs structural unemployment / the natural rate
- The labour force is employed plus actively unemployed people, the participation rate divides it by the working-age population, frictional unemployment reflects search, structural unemployment reflects mismatch, and their longer-run combination contributes to the natural rate.
- Okun's law and the output gap
- Okun's law is the empirical inverse relationship between unemployment changes and real-output growth, while the output gap is actual real GDP minus potential GDP, commonly expressed as a percentage of potential.
- User cost of capital vs value of the marginal product of capital (VMPK = MPK × p)
- The user cost of capital is the effective cost of employing one more unit of capital, while VMPK is the extra physical output from that unit multiplied by output price; investment expands while expected VMPK exceeds user cost.
- Capital accumulation
- Capital accumulation is the change in the productive capital stock through investment net of depreciation, often written K(t+1) = (1−δ)K(t) + I(t).
- Planned Aggregate Expenditure
- Planned Aggregate Expenditure is intended spending on domestic output—consumption, planned investment, government purchases and net exports—at each income level.
- Income-expenditure multiplier and the marginal propensity to consume (MPC)
- The MPC is the share of an additional dollar of disposable income consumed; in the simplest closed model the expenditure multiplier is 1/(1−MPC), magnifying autonomous spending changes through induced consumption.
- AD–AS model, the balance of payments, and the foreign exchange market
- The AD–AS model links aggregate demand and supply to output and prices, the balance of payments records a country's external transactions, and the foreign-exchange market determines currency prices through demand and supply.
ECON1102 FAQ
Is ECON1102 hard?
The examinable surface is deliberately wider than the lecture slides, and the tests are cumulative in a way students underestimate. The outline states Not all examinable material is covered in lectures.
Lecture material is supplemented by required reading and the material covered in the tutorial program and The examinable content of the course is determined by all the material covered during classes, the activities undertaken during classes, the assigned readings, any practice materials and exercises. The Week 9 test page spells the trap out: In-Session Test 2 covers all the topics covered in Chapters 5 to 7 of the e-book.
How is ECON1102 assessed?
50% final exam, 25% in-session tests (two × 12.5%), 15% project (SAQ), 10% in-tutorial problem sets (best 4 of 5 assessed submissions)
What is the ECON1102 exam or final-task format?
In-session tests: online in Moodle, 25 minutes, 15 MCQs, OPEN BOOK (notes, lecture slides, textbook, tutorial materials), started any time between 3:00pm and 6:05pm on Friday 3 July (Week 5, Chapters 1–4) and Friday 31 July (Week 9, Chapters 5–7); auto-submitted when time runs out. All assessments carry Generative AI No Assistance.
Check the current ECON1102 course site and official timetable for any remaining sitting conditions.
Does ECON1102 have a hurdle or component-level pass rule?
In order to pass this course students must: Achieve a composite mark of at least 50 out of 100; Engage actively in course learning activities and attempt all assessment requirements; Meet any additional requirements specified in the assessment details; Meet the specified attendance requirements of the course (see Schedule section) (course outline, Requirements to pass course).
The Attendance Requirements section itself reads Students are strongly encouraged to attend all classes and review lecture recordings. A de facto attendance gate sits on the 10%: Students who miss the tutorial will not be able to submit it.
What prerequisites or restrictions apply to ECON1102?
No formal prerequisite — 'No previous study of economics is assumed although being familiar with the concepts introduced in ECON1101 (Microeconomics 1) is recommended.'
Is ECON1102 offered in Term 2, 2026?
This resource is aligned to Term 2, 2026. Confirm your class and assessment timetable in the current institutional system.
Is this ECON1102 resource an official university guide?
No. It is an independent ECON1102 study resource; current institutional instructions remain authoritative for assessment operation.
How to study for the exam
Retrieve the course map, practise the recurring method—define the macroeconomic variable, state the model and equilibrium condition, trace a shock through the mechanism, then qualify the comparative-static conclusion—on changed scenarios, and verify every operational assessment detail in the live institutional system.
Your AI Economics tutor for ECON1102
Stuck on a hard ECON1102 question? Sia is AskSia’s AI Economics tutor — ask any ECON1102 Macroeconomics 1 question and get a clear, step-by-step explanation grounded in how the course is actually taught and assessed. Read this whole study guide free, then take your hardest questions to Sia.
