Welcome to MacroRules.com!
MacroRules is a website devoted to presenting the theory and tools of modern macroeconomic theory in a way that facilitates practical application by a wide audience.The goal of MacroRules is to provide a free and open on-line educational resource to help bridge the rather large gap between the rather simple IS/LM and AD/AS graphs taught in college macroeconomics courses and the complex econometric and computational models used by professional macroeconomists. It is well-suited for students currently in MBA and MPA programs, professionals working in business and finance, government policy makers and academics in social science fields who seek a deeper understanding of what exactly it is that Ph.D. macroeconomists do.
Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.
- Leonardo Di Vinci
What Can I Find at MacroRules?
- Rules (a free on-line course in macroeconomic theory)
- Discretion (opinion)
- Capital (data and resources)
- R&D (recent research of interest)
Why Use MacroRules?
Are there better websites? Are there better textbooks? Yes, there are many excellent resources available to those wishing to study macroeconomics, and MacroRules is neither superior nor a substitute for what any of these do. The value of this web site, we believe, is that it has a unique objective. Government agencies have websites filled with data, but generally offer little analysis. Many academic economists operate blogs offering wonderful insights on current events - but few if any blogs provide a comprehensive "course" to serve as context for understanding opinion. Undergraduate textbooks are generally excellent at helping students become literate consumers of economic research, but they're not great at helping would-be producers of research. While graduate macroeconomics textbooks are, they are usually filled with lengthy derivations and pathologies of interest to those wishing to advance macroeconomic theory but not necessarily to those who wish to apply it.Modern macroeconomic theory has advanced to the point where being conversant in its latest developments requires a mathematical and formal theoretical background that few people without a doctorate possess. This trend has had two unfortunate consequences - it has reduced the utility of academic research for practitioners and, in so doing, has removed an important source of feedback from the policy world to academia - lessening the relative importance of "practical value" among the various criteria determining the research priorities of academics. Although creating one more web resource alone cannot alter this dynamic, hopefully MacroRules can help.
Macroeconomics: A Practical Approach (Table of Contents)
| Level | Title | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | Origins of the macroeconomy | Discusses the gains from specialization, the concept of PPFs, the invisible hand and the First Welfare Theorem, and the problem of coordination in non-cooperative games |
| Basic | A very basic model of the business cycle | a simple derivation of the AD/AS model |
| Intermediate | A Primer on Growth Theory | A compact presentation of neoclassical growth theory |
| Intermediate | An Empirically-Derived Macro Model | Business Cycle AD/AS model built from empirically observed relationships, rather than a priori reasoning. |
| Intermediate | Notes on Statistics and Econometrics | Discusses estimation, the logic of statistical inference, specification search and time series modeling. |
| Advanced | Theories of the AS Curve | Candidate explanations for the output-inflation tradeoff |
