Economic texts are notoriously inadequate in challenging students to learn economic content or in promoting the scientific method of thinking about economic problems. One possible reason is that authors of economic text have failed to incorporate into their products the latest knowledge from the field of cognitive science about the nature of the reading process. One such new development is schema theory which posits that reading is a process of constructing meaning based on the reader's prior experience - general and topical - and the inferences about the text that are possible as a result of that experience. Three levels of reading comprehension have been identified: (1) textual ly- explicit, i.e. reading comprehension that depends on a literal reading of the text; (2) textual ly-implici t, i. e. comprehension that calls for inference based on ideas and data presented in the text; and (3) conceptually- implicit, i. e. comprehension that requires inferences that go beyond the ideas and data expressed on the printed page. It is hypothesised that students of economic science may experience problems especially with inferential, that is, textually- and conceptually- implicit, reading comprehension processes. The present study is designed to elucidate the interrelated components of a complex target schema (Price Elasticity of Demand) and to examine students' ability to draw inferences described above. A random sample of 40 first-year Marmara University students who fulfilled the English language requirements were pretested on an author-constructed test designed to elicit their prior knowledge of components of the target schema.Subsequently, the students read an expository passage about Price Elasticity of Demand explaining the relationships among the constituent propositions. A posttest consisting of items calling for all three levels of reading skills ( textually-explicit, textually- implicit, and conceptually-implicit) was then administered and the data were analyzed to determine the relationship between prior knowledge of topic and student ability to draw inferences. Individual students' prior knowledge structures were depicted graphically to ascertain the resemblance to the structure predicated by the author. The results of the study suggest that when teachers of economics and authors of economic texts present topics that are built on and complement students' various types of prior knowledge and facilitate inference, they may make economic texts more comprehensible and thus efficient.

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