Economics Stack Exchange
Economics Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [macroeconomics]

Macroeconomics is a branch of economics dealing with the aggregate economy as a whole, rather than individual markets.

Macroeconomics (from the Greek prefix makro- meaning "large" and economics) is a branch of economics dealing with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole, rather than individual markets. This includes national, regional, and global economies.

Macroeconomics examines economy-wide phenomena such as changes in unemployment, national income, rate of growth, gross domestic product, inflation and price levels.

With microeconomics, macroeconomics is one of the two most general fields in economics.

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Fundamental equations in economics

For the other sciences it´s easy to point to the most important equations that ground the discipline. If I want to explain Economics to a physicist say, what are considered to be the most important equations that underly the subject which I should…
Lumi
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Why do economists disagree so much?

I'm coming at this from a scientific point of view, having had no formal training in economics - most of what I know about it was from self-studying an undergraduate economics textbook. My question is, why do economists disagree so much? This…
Allure
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Seminal papers that later were proven to contain errors

I was reading on institutions, and I came across Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (AJR) paper on The Colonial Origins of comparative development: An Empirical Investigation, and this paper seemed so 'perfect' that spawned a lot of other papers based…
An old man in the sea.
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What is the economic purpose of increasing the minimum wage?

It is generally accepted among economists that minimum wage warps the equilibrium point between the supply and demand of labor by instituting a price floor and increases unemployment for unskilled laborers (while increasing the wage for the…
Mathematician
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Is zero inflation desirable?

Is zero inflation really desirable? To be more precise: Does inflation in real life have benefits that in some situations outweigh its social cost? E.g.: it works as a disincentive against holding money. The treasury derives income from printing new…
Giskard
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If someone goes for a haircut, does it increase GDP?

If I go for a haircut, am I causing the GDP to rise because consumption is rising?
ROHAN PAUL
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Why do we need to "get the economy moving again"?

Sorry I have no background in economics but as a computer programmer, I specialise in building models out of simple math and logic, so I hope we can speak the same language without having to get into too much economic jargon. Consider the following…
Andy
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Are there historical cases of country A printing the currency of country B for the main purpose of economic warfare?

I recently read in a news article that a large amount of Libyan banknotes printed in Russia were seized in Malta following an order coming from the USA. Both Russia and the USA have geostrategic interests in this part of the world so I assume this…
Genorme
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What has caused the recent 25% unemployment rate in Spain?

The unemployment rate in Spain has recently been fluctuating around 25%. What has caused this?
Gergely
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People pathologically hoard so much cash that they impoverish the entire nation

"If a man has an apartment stacked to the ceiling with newspapers we call him crazy. If a woman has a trailer house full of cats we call her nuts. But when people pathologically hoard so much cash that they impoverish the entire nation, we…
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From an economics perspective, what are the ramifications of a currency with fixed money supply?

I'm thinking specifically of bitcoins. What are the pros and cons of having a fixed number of coins, as opposed to more "normal" currencies? Would the currency have no inflation?
Jason Nichols
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How do Gini coefficients correlate with the cost of higher education?

Are there any studies that explore the higher net present value (NPV) of education in countries with higher Gini coefficients? Additionally, do any of these studies include the impacts of economic mobility as a reducing factor of the NPV or price of…
Jason Nichols
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Why is a stock market crash so bad?

Many folks speak about potential stock market crashes when central banks raise interest rates. I am not a graduate economist nor do I pretend to understand it, but I am definitely curious about what's happening because it affects me. I have two…
Hairi
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Could eliminating all taxes and only creating new money theoretically work?

Imagine you had the opportunity to found a new country from scratch (in 2020). Value exchange would be digital, where only the state can create new currency units. Instead of relying on income tax and/or indirect taxes, there would be no form of…
Nico
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Should we expect more structural technological unemployment if growth becomes more limited by natural resources and less by labour?

Technological unemployment, where unemployment arises from (with some oversimplification) workers being replaced by machines, has so far been temporary as new jobs were created that replaced the old jobs. Structural unemployment has been predicted…
gerrit
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