Greg Mankew’s textbook is the best for intro imo. Not cheap.
https://www.amazon.com/Macroeconomics-N-Gregory-Mankiw-ebook...
Ask HN: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?
51–60 of 141 posts
Re: Ask HN: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?
#52I don't know what your general knowledge of economics entails, so this might be obvious, but the back half of Principles of Economics by N. Gregory Mankiw covers how a lot of those pieces are interrelated.
(Bonus tip: buy an international edition on eBay. It's the same content.)
Re: Ask HN: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?
#53Economics is an arena full of entrenched interests who exploit information asymmetry and regulatory capture to compete, at multiple scale factors. It is my strongly held opinion that rational analysis of "Economics" is not possible. You've got the global scale, where nations compete, best described by Beau of the Fifth Column as a game of poker where everyone cheats to gain power. You've got the corporate scale, wher…
To attach some further cynicism to this comment:
The going rate to buy a "respectable" politician appears to be donations in the $10k to $1 million range. Buying an economist is going to be much cheaper than that.
Anyone with a bit of money behind them can pay for any sort of economics they like. Note that many famous economists are vulnerable to financial or political influence.
It is not a safe field for uncovering facts about reality without being a confidently independent thinker and researcher.
Re: Ask HN: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?
#54Peter Schiff has a great podcast. One year listening to him, you will understand many things about our world. I really recommend, and even if this gets downvoted / trashed, have a listen by yourself.
Re: Ask HN: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?
#55Economics is an arena full of entrenched interests who exploit information asymmetry and regulatory capture to compete, at multiple scale factors. It is my strongly held opinion that rational analysis of "Economics" is not possible. You've got the global scale, where nations compete, best described by Beau of the Fifth Column as a game of poker where everyone cheats to gain power. You've got the corporate scale, wher…
This is the correct answer.
Re: Ask HN: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?
#56There are many different types of models used for different purposes.
https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/ne...
https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2013/12/microfoundations-il...
the models people use to explain/illustrate are more toy models, micro-founded DSGE models, for forecasting typically people tend to use empirical models.
One approach would be to do a college intro to macro textbook or MOOC and then possibly a course on forecasting, like https://www.edx.org/course/macroeconometric-forecasting-2
there isn't much of a consensus on what 'properly' means but IMHO a good start is just understanding the IS/LM analysis and what the curves look like under assumptions from classical models, keynesian, and keynesian-classical synthesis (basically says more keynes in short run and more classical in long run), phillips curve, lucas critique.
then some monetary economics (old school macro tends to ignore financial sector), international trade, open economy macro.
with maybe a time series forecasting book/course thrown in
complementarity is king https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/laibson/files/seven_proper...
doing macro as an investor is a little bit like doing weather forecasting as a sailor ... it's important to understand the kinds of conditions you might be sailing in but probably a bit futile and pointless to do a very deep dive into the math of it.
my question would be what is the best book or course for time series analysis?
Re: Ask HN: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?
#57There are many different types of models used for different purposes. https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/ne... https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2013/12/microfoundations-il... the models people use to explain/illustrate are more toy models, micro-founded DSGE models, for forecasting typically people tend to use empirical models. One approach would be to do a college intro to macro textbook or MO…
Rob Hyndmans book is a great quick intro:
If you want to jump in the deep end (aka you know good chunk of mathematics), you could skim Hamilton's Time Series Analysis
A good way to learn is to do a bunch of time series analysis, kaggle has some
Re: Ask HN: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?
#58MIT OpenCourseWare [1] is your best bet here. [1] https://ocw.mit.edu/search/?q=macroeconomics
This is a great suggestion
I've been reading the textbook for the intro macro class here and supplementing the reading with blogs and it seems to be working quite well. At the very least, I have a decent conceptual understanding and know the vocabulary after just a couple months of reading ~30m/day
Re: Ask HN: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?
#59Economics is an arena full of entrenched interests who exploit information asymmetry and regulatory capture to compete, at multiple scale factors. It is my strongly held opinion that rational analysis of "Economics" is not possible. You've got the global scale, where nations compete, best described by Beau of the Fifth Column as a game of poker where everyone cheats to gain power. You've got the corporate scale, wher…
Dang! And i thought i had a very bleak view of Economics :-)
PS: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/12-meanest-things-nassim-tale...
Re: Ask HN: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?
#60I don't think it's possible to learn macroeconomics "properly", in the sense that one can learn e.g. quantum physics "properly". I pick quantum physics because not every expert agrees on some of the tail end of theoretical things, but there's broad agreement on the main parts of it. Those main parts are more than the average person will ever need to use. This is not remotely true with respect to macroeconomics. It's…
The saying goes, "if you want three opinions, ask two economists looking at one set of data".
"Give me a one-handed economist! All my economists say ‘on the one hand… [and then] on the other.'"
President Truman