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Recommended Reading
Often in an A level exam you will asked to comment on the 'effectiveness' of a policy eg to what extent an indirect tax on cigarettes might reduce consumption. For an 'effectiveness' question think 'chocolate teapot' !!! It goes without saying.... that if you try to make tea in a chocolate teapot you will not achieve your objective. But a chocolate teapot could make a half-decent ornament or you could eat it if you were peckish. It can be useful ie effective. It depends what the objective is.
When you are asked to discuss the effectiveness of a policy one of the first things to do is say how we will judge its effectiveness ie to what extent is it likely to work (theory) or to what extent it has worked ( empirical evidence). And that depends upon how far it achieves a specified objective.
So going back to our indirect tax on cigarettes - it may not be that effective in getting people to give up smoking (inelastic demand ) but it will raise ooodles of tax revenue for the government.
NB This is evaluation and there are usually lots of evaluation marks in A2 questions worth anything more than 6 marks (rough rule of thumb)
No sugar - thanks.
