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 regional, national, 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.

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Macroeconomics
Basic concepts Aggregate demand Aggregate supply Business cycle Deflation Demand shock Disinflation Effective demand Expectations Adaptive Rational Financial crisis Growth Inflation Demand-pull Cost-push Interest rate Investment Liquidity trap Measures of national income and output GDP GNI NNI Microfoundations Money Endogenous Money creation Demand for money Liquidity preference Money supply National accounts SNA Nominal rigidity Price level Recession Shrinkflation Stagflation Supply shock Saving Unemployment
Policies Fiscal Monetary Commercial Central bank Universal basic income
Models IS–LM AD–AS Keynesian cross Multiplier Accelerator Phillips curve Arrow–Debreu Harrod–Domar Solow–Swan Ramsey–Cass–Koopmans Overlapping generations General equilibrium DSGE Endogenous growth Matching theory Mundell–Fleming Overshooting NAIRU
Related fields Econometrics Economic statistics Monetary economics Development economics International economics
Schools Mainstream Keynesian Neo- New Monetarism New classical Real business-cycle theory Stockholm Supply-side New neoclassical synthesis Saltwater and freshwater Heterodox Austrian Chartalism Modern monetary theory Ecological Post-Keynesian Circuitism Disequilibrium Marxian Market monetarism
People François Quesnay Adam Smith Thomas Robert Malthus Karl Marx Léon Walras Knut Wicksell Irving Fisher Wesley Clair Mitchell John Maynard Keynes Alvin Hansen Michał Kalecki Gunnar Myrdal Simon Kuznets Joan Robinson Friedrich Hayek John Hicks Richard Stone Hyman Minsky Milton Friedman Paul Samuelson Lawrence Klein Edmund Phelps Robert Lucas Jr. Edward C. Prescott Peter Diamond William Nordhaus Joseph Stiglitz Thomas J. Sargent Paul Krugman N. Gregory Mankiw
See also Macroeconomic model Publications in macroeconomics Economics Applied Microeconomics Political economy Mathematical economics
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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.