The Internal Assessment asks students to find a real-life situation in the news from the last year and to write a paper that applies both an Economic theory and one of the Nine Central Themes.  For High Level students the Internal Assessment is worth 20% of their composite score, while for Standard Level students it is worth 30% of their composite score .

Each student must write three commentaries, one on each of the three main sections of the curriculum.  Each of the real-life situations must come from a different news source and each commentary must refer to a different one of the Nine Central Themes of scarcity, choice, efficiency, equity, economic wellbeing, sustainability, change, interdependence and intervention.

The Internal Assessment is graded by the IB Economics teacher of the school where it is assigned and then a sampling is sent to the IB for moderation.  Each commentary is worth 14 marks.  Since the Internal Assessment portfolio consists of three commentaries and 3 bonus points, the maximum score for the Internal Assessment is 45 marks.