Macroeconomics

Macroeconomics is a branch of economics that deals with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole.^[1] This includes national, regional, and global economies.^[2]^[3] Macroeconomists study topics such as output/GDP (gross domestic product) and national income, unemployment (including unemployment rates), price indices and inflation, consumption, saving, investment, energy, international trade, and international finance.

Macroeconomics and microeconomics are the two most general fields in economics.^[4] The focus of macroeconomics is often on a country (or larger entities like the whole world) and how its markets interact to produce large-scale phenomena that economists refer to as aggregate variables. In microeconomics the focus of analysis is often a single market, such as whether changes in supply or demand are to blame for price increases in the oil and automotive sectors. From introductory classes in "principles of economics" through doctoral studies, the macro/micro divide is institutionalized in the field of economics. Most economists identify as either macro- or micro-economists.

Macroeconomics is traditionally divided into topics along different time frames: the analysis of short-term fluctuations over the business cycle, the determination of structural levels of variables like inflation and unemployment in the medium (i.e. unaffected by short-term deviations) term, and the study of long-term economic growth. It also studies the consequences of policies targeted at mitigating fluctuations like fiscal or monetary policy, using taxation and government expenditure or interest rates, respectively, and of policies that can affect living standards in the long term, e.g. by affecting growth rates.

Macroeconomics as a separate field of research and study is generally recognized to start in 1936, when John Maynard Keynes published his The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, but its intellectual predecessors are much older. Since World War II, various macroeconomic schools of thought like Keynesians, monetarists, new classical and new Keynesian economists have made contributions to the development of the macroeconomic research mainstream.

^ Samuelson, Robert (2020). "Goodbye, readers, and good luck — you'll need it". The Washington Post. This article was an opinion piece expressing despondency in the field shortly before his retirement, but it is still a good summary.
^ O'Sullivan, Arthur; Sheffrin, Steven M. (2003). Economics: Principles in Action. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. p. 57. ISBN 978-0-13-063085-8.
^ Steve Williamson, Notes on Macroeconomic Theory, 1999
^ Blaug, Mark (1985), Economic theory in retrospect, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-31644-6

[1] Samuelson, Robert (2020). "Goodbye, readers, and good luck — you'll need it". The Washington Post. This article was an opinion piece expressing despondency in the field shortly before his retirement, but it is still a good summary.

[2] O'Sullivan, Arthur; Sheffrin, Steven M. (2003). Economics: Principles in Action. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. p. 57. ISBN 978-0-13-063085-8.

[3] Steve Williamson, Notes on Macroeconomic Theory, 1999

[blaug1985-4] Blaug, Mark (1985), Economic theory in retrospect, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-31644-6

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