These explainer videos give an insight into general writing structures for Economics exams. The sample questions are sourced from Queensland Certificate of Education (QCE) Economics External Assessment papers from the early 2020's. Since these videos were produced the exam marking guides have become slightly less prescriptive than the examples in these videos. Visit the pages with explainers from more recent years to see how to aply these strategies with more up to date examples.
Australia Production Capacity Utilisation 1999 - 2026 :: interactive graph
Capacity utilisation tells us how intensively firms are using their available productive capacity — their plant, equipment, and workers — so a reading above its long-run average signals the economy is running hot with little spare capacity (a positive output gap and building inflation pressure), while a reading below signals idle resources and slack (a negative output gap).
We can then determine about the actual output of our economy compared to our potential output. We can also now visualise output as it might appear on our production possibilities curve.
The long-run average capacity utilisation in the Australian economy sits at about 81%.
The interactive below can overlay:
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trimmed mean inflation - notice how inflation tends to peak after peak in capacity.
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unemployment - the gap between the unemployment rate to the NAIRU.