Developing Economic Reasoning through Financial Document Inquiry in Undergraduate Teaching

Abstract

Financial documents can make economics teaching concrete, but their classroom use frequently stops at calculating ratios or identifying accounting discrepancies. This conceptual and methodological article develops an inquiry sequence in which students reconstruct an economic problem from a bounded set of financial records, examine competing explanations, and communicate a conditional decision. The framework draws on research in economics education, problem based learning, cognitive load, and financial literacy assessment. Its contribution is a distinction between document accuracy, accounting interpretation, and economic inference, with separate learning outcomes for each. An illustrative teaching dataset demonstrates why increasing expenditure does not necessarily indicate declining efficiency and why a balanced account does not establish an efficient allocation. The article supplies a staged inquiry protocol, a document design matrix, a worked analysis, and an evaluation strategy. The proposed sequence combines explicit instruction with progressively reduced support. No participant data or empirical intervention results are reported.