Websites help demystify macroeconomics

  • The Philadelphia Inquirer
  • Sunday, January 30, 2011 12:01am
  • Business

Macroeconomics is a term for the big picture on money — the way finances work among nations and industries. See these sites for some macro-understanding of a widely misunderstood subject.

“What is Macroeconomics?” asks About.com. It contrasts the term, naturally, with so-called microeconomics, which is all about money decisions made at the personal or single-business level.

The links here go mainly to other About.com articles and sections and cover a lot of ground, including a beginner’s guide to economic indicators, an economics glossary, and a piece asking, “What is money?” http://go.philly.com/macroecon1

A little background in macroeconomics gets you ready to read the Financial Times and other money-focused publications without glazed eyeballs. This article, “A macroeconomic view of the current economy,” should get you started. It’s on the Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge site and is an interview with David A. Moss, author of A Concise Guide to Macroeconomics. What are exchange rates? What is GDP? Why do they matter? “If these aren’t familiar terms, and if one doesn’t have a way of putting it all together, then you can’t process all of this information as effectively as possible,” Moss says here. http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6332.html

There’s a summary of the Moss interview on this blog posting by Sean Silverthorne. http://go.philly.com/macroecon2

After a recession, you may ask, what’s so funny about economics? Plenty, says Yoram Bauman, the “Stand-Up Economist.” He says his goal is “to spread joy to the world through economics comedy.” In a video he explains the basics. For example, he says the difference between microeconomists and macroeconomists is that “microeconomists are people who are wrong about specific things, and macroeconomists are wrong about things in general.” http://www.standupeconomist.com

Faulty models and abuse of statistics explain “why most economists get it wrong,” says analyst Ron Robins at the Arabic and English website alrroya.com. http://go.philly.com/macroecon3

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