MACROECONOMICS

INTRODUCTION TO MACROECONOMICS

As a result of studying this chapter, the student should:

know

the subject of macroeconomics;
features of the subject of macroeconomics in comparison with the subject of microeconomics;
the contribution of various theories to the course of macroeconomics;
features of the analysis of the economy at the macro level in the long and short term;
the role of expectations in macroeconomics;

be able to

justify the eclectic nature of macroeconomics;
substantiate the goals of macroeconomic policy and their inconsistency;
substantiate the dependence of macroeconomic theory and economic policy;
highlight the differences between rational, static and adaptive expectations;

own

skills in analyzing the circulation of goods and money and deriving a model of equilibrium "withdrawal-injection";
skills in the analysis of expectations in the economy.

The subject of macroeconomics and its features. Macroeconomics and economic policy

Subject of macroeconomics

Macroeconomics is a part of economic theory that studies the functioning national economy as a whole. Issues relating to the economy as a whole affect the interests of each of us. This includes analysis of economic fluctuations, employment, inflation, exchange rate. The importance of macroeconomics as a science can be judged by how often we can hear and read in the media about GDP growth, the state of the balance of payments and official gold reserves, measures to stimulate employment, spending state budget.

Macroeconomics as an independent branch of economic theory appeared relatively recently. Although in the 19th century in the works of economists, macroeconomic problems were considered, such as the problems of economic growth, the reproduction of the social product, monetary theories, but as a holistic concept of the functioning of the economy, it developed in the 1930s.

The birth of macroeconomics as a science is associated with the name of J. M. Keynes, the author of the book "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money", in which for the first time macroeconomic problems are presented as a subject of study. Keynes's views were largely formed under the influence of the Great Depression, which prompted him to seriously study the economy as a whole system.

Features of the subject of macroeconomics

The subject of macroeconomics has specific features.

1. The first feature is the eclecticism of macroeconomics as a science, since none of the existing economic theories describes comprehensively, exhaustively, the ongoing processes and phenomena. Therefore, there is a need to study various approaches to the study of macroeconomics and various instruments of economic policy. The question of the goals and methods of implementing macroeconomic policy is one of the most controversial in economic theory. On this issue, the differences between economic schools are most clearly visible. The range of these differences is very wide: from almost complete denial of state intervention in the economy to recognition of the active role of the state in solving economic problems.

The theoretical basis for the ambiguous interpretation of the role of the state in the economy is the unequal understanding of the market's ability to self-regulate and crisis-free economic development. Modern macroeconomic theory is represented by a wide range of schools and directions. Representatives of individual schools and movements express opposing views on some issues, unite on others, and try to find consensus on others. This complicates the scientific classification of modern economic thought.

In the 1950s–1960s Keynesian model has become a generally recognized theoretical justification for the stabilization, anti-cyclical policy of the state. It provided for active government action aimed at expanding aggregate demand during a recession and limiting it during the phases of economic recovery and the resulting price increases. The main instruments of such regulation were recognized budgetary policy(taxes, government spending, budget deficit), as well as supporting monetary policy instruments pursued by central banks (open market operations, refinancing rates, reserve requirement). According to Keynes, monetary policy should adapt to and complement fiscal policy. During this period, the main problem of the economy was unemployment, the economy was characterized by minimal openness, had fixed exchange rates (in accordance with the Bretton Woods agreements of 1944).

The implementation of Keynesian prescriptions for regulation led to an increase in budget deficits and the accumulation of public debt. Under these conditions, inflationary tendencies began to intensify, and the first signs of a slowdown in growth rates, primarily in labor productivity, appeared. The situation in the economy began to be characterized as stagflation. The situation in the economy was aggravated by the energy crisis that arose after the OPEC member countries took control of the world oil market. In 1971 fixed exchange rates were abolished. All this, taken together, led to a revision of the entire structure of macroeconomic regulation. Increased influence neoclassical theory, which is based on the principle of non-intervention of the state in the economy. The market mechanism, according to neoclassical theorists, itself establishes a balance between supply and demand, production and consumption.

The theoretical substantiation of new approaches to the analysis of economic reality and the role of economic policy was monetarism, the theory of rational expectations, the theory of supply-side economics, and the theory of real cycles.

One of the key provisions monetarism, on the basis of which its representatives build their version of the explanation of the economic cycle, is that money plays exclusively important role in changes in real income, employment and the general price level. Representatives of monetarism argue that there is a relationship between the growth rate of the amount of money and nominal income: with a rapid growth in the money supply, nominal income also grows rapidly, and vice versa.

A change in the money supply affects both the price level and output. It follows that the monetarist version of the quantity theory of money performs the function of management money demand, and through it - and economic

processes. The change in the nominal amount of money set by the US Federal Reserve considers Milton Friedman(1912–2006) has a significant impact on output and employment in the short run, and on prices in the long run. In the book "Monetary History of the USA. 1867-1960" M. Friedman notes the high stability of the relationship between changes in the money supply and cyclical fluctuations in economic activity.

The idea of rational expectations was first proposed in 1961. John Muth(1930–2005) in Rational Expectations and the Theory of Price Movement, and then developed into rational expectations theory Robert Lucas(born 1937). If Keynes's theory was based on static expectations, in accordance with which the subjects make decisions, focusing on the parameters of the current situation, then rational expectations assume that economic subjects form their plans and build their behavior based on the analysis of all available resources. this moment information. Rationally acting subjects not only take into account the mistakes of past experience, but also look into the future. When making their decisions, they rely on their own ideas about the economic management model and use all available information about expected events that may affect the economic situation. This allows them, in the absence of unexpected shocks, to accurately predict future changes. As a result, it turns out that the subjects, when forming their forecasts about the future price level, do it in the same way as the market determines the actual prices, so government intervention in the economy is redundant.

founder supply-side economics theory is Arthur Laffer(b. 1940), who outlined it in the works "The Phenomenon of World Inflation" (1975, together with D. Meiselman) and "The Economic Theory of Tax Evasion" (1979, together with J. Seymour). A significant contribution to the development of the theory was made Martin Feldstein(born 1939). But according to the representatives of this school, it is necessary to create all the conditions for the population for the effective production of goods and services. Thus, stimulating the supply of labor and capital was an important criterion for the development of the economy. As a general rule, supply-side economists strongly support government tax cuts because in most cases firms view taxes as an additional cost for each additional unit of output, and tax increases can lead to a reduction in aggregate supply, which in turn can lead to such consequences, like stagflation and cost-push inflation.

Real Business Cycle Theory Finn Kydland(b. 1943) and Edward Prescott(born 1940), laureates Nobel Prize for 2004, proves that cyclical fluctuations in the economy are due to fluctuations in aggregate supply. Such fluctuations can be determined by government policy, changes in the pace of technological progress, strikes, natural disasters. The conclusions drawn on the basis of the analysis of these theories were additional evidence of the inconsistency of the Keynesian theory.

All this served as an incentive to reconsider the positions of the former Keynesianism. First of all, the role and nature of budget policy were revised. Reduction of budget deficits, slowdown in the growth of public spending, implementation of tax reforms to reduce the tax burden and public debt - all this has reduced the possibility of using budget policy as the most important tool of macroeconomic regulation.

Monetary policy and activities began to play a major role in macroeconomic stabilization central bank, in particular the policy interest rate. However, the use of this tool in the context of globalization and the uncontrolled movement of speculative capital requires caution. Falling interest rates and excess government spending over revenue cause an outflow of speculative capital, a fall in the exchange rate and an increase in the price of imported goods. This creates conditions for inflation.

In 1999 he received the Nobel Prize Robert Mundell(b. 1932) for a theory that describes the dependence of fiscal and monetary policy on the exchange rate regime. If the regime of fixed rates increases the efficiency of fiscal policy, reducing the role of monetary policy, then in the context of flexible exchange rates, monetary regulation, and budgetary policy is losing its former significance. Back in the 1960s. he put forward theory of optimal currency area.

An optimal currency area is an area in which exchange rates should be fixed. This is an association of states in which a fixed exchange rate regime or a single currency is adopted while maintaining a flexible exchange rate in relation to the rest of the world. According to this theory, a group of countries introducing single currency, receives certain benefits due to higher price transparency, reduction in the cost of economic settlements, lower transaction costs, reduced uncertainty and increased competition. But at the same time, states should abandon their independently pursued monetary policy. This theory was recognized as a rationale for the formation of a single currency area within the European Union.

The implementation of the budget policy faced the need to introduce certain "budget rules" into it. It's about about such rules or norms that could serve as criteria for the effectiveness of budgetary policy. Generally, there are three types of rules. First, a balanced budget. Secondly, the rules regarding loans. They may prohibit government borrowing from internal sources; prohibit government borrowing from the central bank; to limit these loans to a certain proportion in relation to past government expenditures and revenues. Thirdly, the rules concerning the size of the public debt or reserves. Such norms, approved by law or adopted as a "social contract", are able to eliminate the negative aspects of the activities of democratically elected governments, which, under the pressure of the electorate, tend to spend more than their income allows, thereby accumulating debts and shifting the burden of their payments to future generations. An example of the implementation of such rules in practice is the European Union, where fiscal policy, unlike monetary policy, remains under the control of the EU member states themselves.

The crisis of Keynes's theory, the neoclassical school coming to the fore, new trends in the very mechanisms of economic regulation - all these phenomena caused a rapid renewal of Keynesianism and the synthesis of macroeconomics and the neoclassical school. A significant contribution to this synthesis was made by James Tobin(1918–2002), Nobel laureate for 1981. He owns the development of the problem of the functioning of financial markets. Keynesian liquidity preference theory he developed within portfolio theory valuable papers. According to it, each investor, choosing between the level of income and the risk of losing it, applies this criterion not only to cash, but to the entire spectrum of financial and real assets. Monetary and budgetary policy, influencing the choice of asset structure, thereby also affects real variables - investment, savings, consumption. Tobin contrasted this approach with modern neoclassical theories (including monetarism), which prove the inefficiency of state macroeconomic policy.

The response to neoclassical theories was the emergence of new Keynesian theories and models of the business cycle. Their development is associated with the names of such economists as Gregory Mankiw (b. 1958) and George Akerlof(born 1940). They focused their efforts on developing the microeconomic foundations of macroeconomics. In their opinion, demand shocks are the cause of the economic cycle, and they seek to find out what causes firms to adjust to changes in demand and restore equilibrium through price changes. This enables many students of economic thought to write about the "neo-Keynesian" synthesis.

Thomas Sargent(b. 1943) and Christopher Sims(b. 1942), 2011 Nobel Laureates in Economics for empirical research cause-and-effect relationships in macroeconomics, have focused their research on the fact that in economics, when there is some kind of correlation between economic indicators, the question arises: how much one variable actually depends on the other and vice versa. Just looking at the data, it is impossible to give a correct answer, for this you need to propose a theory. The search for an answer to this question led them to develop a method of structural regression analysis. This analysis allows you to look at the data through the prism of economic theory and find out which theory is refuted by the data and which is confirmed.

2. The second feature of macroeconomics is that the study of the economy as a whole involves aggregation and use aggregated parameters and indicators such as gross domestic product (GDP), gross national income(GNI), price indices, unemployment rate, etc.

In macroeconomics, four subjects are distinguished: households, firms, the state and foreigners. Each of the aggregated subjects is a set of really acting subjects of this type. At the same time, each of them is a typical representative of economic entities of this type, and for the purposes of macroeconomic analysis, only those features of the subject's behavior that are inherent in each of them are selected. This means that there is an aggregation and the nature of their behavior.

Unlike microeconomic analysis, in which the decisions of producers and consumers and their actions in individual markets are considered as independent, the study of the economy as a whole implies the need to consider the interaction between economic actors through a system of interconnected markets.

In macroeconomics, aggregated markets are considered; for this, the entire set of microeconomic markets is grouped into four types of markets:

Market of goods and services. All individual differences in microeconomic markets for goods and services disappear. The object of research is the mechanisms of formation of aggregate demand and aggregate supply, price levels and equilibrium conditions.
The resource market is the market in which firms purchase from households the resources needed for production: labor, capital, and natural resources.
Financial market on which redistribution takes place Money between economic entities. The components of the financial market are the money market and the securities market.
The international market is represented by the foreign sector. Analyzing open economy, the international market is divided into the market of goods and services, the labor market, the asset market, the foreign exchange market.
3. The third feature of macroeconomics is study of the functions of the state. The allocation of the state as the main subject of the economy makes macroeconomics fundamentally different from other sections of economic theory. The state is seen as the totality of all government organizations and institutions. All state institutions are very diverse in terms of their functions, but in macroeconomics they are all combined into one entity - the state. The state is producing public goods which include justice, law and order, defense. To produce these goods, the state collects taxes from firms and households. The most important function of the state is to conduct a stabilization policy during economic crises. In macroeconomics, equilibrium models are studied and the role of the state in the process of forming the conditions for macroeconomic equilibrium is studied.
4. The fourth feature is that the science of macroeconomics studies the economy in short term and long term, whose characteristics are different from those accepted in microeconomics. This division into two periods is based on one of the fundamental assumptions of macroeconomic models - about changes in prices and wages according to prevailing market conditions. Economists, as a rule, proceed from the fact that prices change under the influence of supply and demand, i.e. they assume that, at a given price, buyers bought whatever they wanted and sellers sold what they wanted. As a result, the market is in equilibrium.

But the assumption about the stability of the market equilibrium is not always true. In order for this equilibrium to be permanently maintained, prices and wages must be flexible. In fact, the corresponding changes in prices and wages are slow. This results from the dominance of monopolies, which control prices with bargaining power. Prevent price cuts contractual relationship, which employers and employees enter into, stipulating the level of wages for the entire period of validity employment contract. In the labor market, the trade unions reduce the flexibility of wages, seeking to establish its minimum level.

The inflexibility of prices observed in the market does not mean that equilibrium models are inapplicable. Prices are not completely fixed and yet change in line with changes in supply and demand over the long run. Market balancing models do not necessarily describe the economy at any given point in time, but they describe the state to which markets gravitate. Most economists believe that the assumption of price flexibility is justified for the study of long-term periods in which nominal indicators (prices) change, but real (production volumes) remain unchanged, i.e. nominal and real indicators do not influence each other. Hence the conclusion is drawn about the limited participation of the state in the economy.

For the study of short-term periods, such as annual economic fluctuations, the assumption of price flexibility is incorrect. Over short periods, many types of prices remain at the same level. For example, magazine publishers do not change their price throughout the year, which is determined by the terms of the subscription. Therefore, economists believe that nominal indicators (prices) are stable in the short run, while real indicators (production volumes) change. Methods and tools are used to stimulate aggregate demand and output volumes state regulation. Representatives of the Keynesian theory are focused mainly on the study of the short term, while representatives of the neoclassical school are mainly concerned with the study of the long term.

Macroeconomics and economic policy

Macroeconomics as a science is the theoretical basis for the government's economic policy. In the early stages of the development of macroeconomic theory, it was believed that governments could and should correct market imperfections. However, the experience of recent decades shows that government actions can be untenable. One of the main dividing lines between economists is that they are more afraid of market failures and those more afraid of government failures. The government of each country is responsible for maintaining the economy. During election campaigns, incumbent governments are judged primarily on their economic performance.

AT general view macroeconomics is reduced to the division of all economic factors into two groups: factors affecting the demand for goods and services, and factors affecting the supply of these goods and services. This fundamental difference corresponds to a clear distinction between two alternative types public policy, and types of violations that occur in the business environment.

The demand side has to do with the study of spending decisions made by economic agents. Aggregate demand management is based on the fact that governments can take actions to neutralize the actions of firms and households in order to reduce or eliminate fluctuations in spending in order to prevent recessions and booms. Demand management is carried out with the help of fiscal, monetary and foreign trade policies.

The supply side is related to the productive potential of the economy. Determining the amount of working time, labor productivity factors, improving the efficiency of resource allocation affect the aggregate supply. The policy of reducing unemployment and increasing the efficiency of production in general plays a decisive role in the supply-side economy.

If in microeconomics the purpose of the functioning of the company is clearly defined in the form of profit maximization, then in macroeconomics it is impossible to single out one goal implemented by the state, there are several of them, and in some cases they contradict each other. To macroeconomic policy objectives include the following.

1. Stable economic growth. The main performance criterion is the growth of gross domestic product. The level of well-being of the population depends on the rate of its growth.
2. Stable price level. Stable competitive prices are set based on the interaction of supply and demand. Stabilization of the price level ensures the minimization of the inflation rate.
3. High level of employment of resources.
4. Active foreign trade balance. The more competitive products a country produces and sells on the world market, the greater the aggregate demand and the more stable the exchange rate. national currency.

Some goals may conflict with each other, for example, economists argue that high rates of economic growth and employment can cause inflation. The contradiction between price level stability and high level employment is the subject of lively debate. If some macroeconomic goals conflict with each other, then the government should prioritize the implementation of these goals.

Macroeconomics- a section of economic theory that studies the patterns of functioning of the economic system as a whole. It is worth noting that it is designed to find out how the economy as a whole works, to analyze the conditions, factors and results of the development of the national economy of a single state.

As such, the definition of "macroeconomics" is associated with the Greek words "macro" - large, large and "economy" - the art of managing the economy. Based on all of the above, we come to the conclusion that macroeconomics, as an integral part of economic theory, deals with large economic quantities and problems.
It is worth noting that the main differences between macro- and microanalysis can be presented in the following table.

Focusing on the most significant economic factors in the development of the economy, macroeconomics does not take into account the behavior of individual economic agents - firms, households. Macroeconomic analysis involves abstracting from the differences between individual markets and identifying key points functioning of an integral economic system.

Macroeconomics is one of the youngest and most promising branches of economic theory. As an independent scientific discipline, macroeconomics began to take shape in the 30s of the twentieth century. Its emergence is associated with the name of the outstanding English economist John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946). His main approaches to the study of macroeconomic processes are outlined in the work "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" (1936). In this work, Keynes studied the main macroeconomic categories: national production volume, price level and employment, consumption, savings, investment etc.

At the same time, macroeconomic analysis itself appeared much earlier. The first attempt to describe macroeconomic patterns was made by a representative of the French school of physiocrats, Francois Quesnay (1694-1774). It is worth noting that he was the first to introduce the concept of " reproduction» as a constant repetition of the process of production and sale.

A significant role in the development of macroeconomic analysis was played by the schemes of simple and expanded reproduction of K. Marx (1818-1883), the theory general equilibrium Leon Do not forget that Walras (1834-1910)

Many aspects of macroeconomics have been developed by such scientists as J. K. Galbright, E. Domar, S. Kuznets, V. Leontiev, G. Myrdal, P. Samuelson, I. Fisher, M. Friedman, E. Hansen, R. Harrod and others.

Main macroeconomic problems

The focus of macroeconomics is on the following main issues:

ensuring economic growth;
general economic equilibrium and the conditions for achieving it;
macroeconomic instability, measurement and regulation methods;
determination of results economic activity;
state of the state budget and balance of payments of the country;
cyclicality economic development;
optimization of foreign economic relations;
social protection of the population and others.

macroeconomic policy

Macroeconomics uses in its analysis aggregated or aggregate values that characterize the movement of the economy as a whole:

gross national product
general price level
market rate of interest
inflation rate
employment and unemployment rate

The main macroeconomic indicators will be: gross national product, its growth rate, inflation rate and unemployment rate.

It should not be forgotten that the most important outcome of macroeconomic analysis will be the development of macroeconomic policy.

macroeconomic policy- ϶ᴛᴏ system of measures and activities aimed at solving social and economic problems. The objective goal of macroeconomic policy will be to maintain the efficiency of the economy, mitigate the contradictions of the reproduction process.

Main tasks of macroeconomic policy are determined by the requirements of development, which are set by the changing reality in a given period of time. Therefore, depending on the state of economic development, not only the tasks of macroeconomic policy change, but also its types (anti-cyclical, anti-inflationary, economic growth, stabilization). Today, the macroeconomic policy of countries with developed market economies is aimed at achieving the following tasks:

security sustainable economic growth, allowing to achieve a higher quality and standard of living of the population;
security high employment(with a small involuntary unemployment), which provides an opportunity for all individuals to realize ϲʙᴏ and productive abilities and receive income depending on the quality and quantity of labor expended;
security social security guaranteeing a decent existence for the unemployed, the disabled, the elderly and children;
ensuring economic freedom, which provides economic entities with the opportunity to choose the field of activity and the model of economic behavior;
ensuring general economic security;
achievement of an optimal balance of payments, ensuring the establishment of a balance in international commodity and cash flows, stabilization of the exchange rate of the national currency.

Goals of macroeconomic policy (macroeconomics):

Maintaining a high level of national production, and a constant rate of economic growth, without recessions.
High Employment and Low Involuntary Unemployment
Implementation of rational market pricing to maintain price stability
The balance of exports and imports
Exchange rate stability

Problems that make up the subject of macroeconomics:

national production- measuring the national volume of production and implementing the necessary measures to maintain a constant rate of economic growth.
Employment— macroeconomic instability, cyclical development, unemployment
Price level– state intervention in economic development to reduce inflation and improve the welfare of citizens
Foreign economic development– cooperation with other countries

Macroeconomic policy instruments

The macroeconomic policy of the state is carried out by the Government and central bank. The following tools are distinguished: fiscal, monetary, social and foreign economic.

Subject of macroeconomics

Macroeconomics, like microeconomics, is a branch of economic theory. Translated from Greek, the word "macro" means "big" (respectively, "micro" - "small"), and the word "economy" - "housekeeping". Thus, macroeconomics is a science that studies the behavior of the economy as a whole or its large aggregates (aggregates), while the economy is considered as a complex large single hierarchically organized system, as a set of economic processes and phenomena and their indicators.

For the first time the term "macroeconomics" was used in his article in 1933 by the famous Norwegian scientist - economist-mathematician, one of the founders of econometrics, Nobel Prize winner Ragnar Frisch. However, meaningfully modern macroeconomic theory originates from the fundamental work of the outstanding English economist, representative of the Cambridge School, Lord John Maynard Keynes. In 1936, Keynes published his book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, in which he laid the foundations of macroeconomic analysis. The significance of Keynes's work was so great that in economic literature the term “Keynesian revolution” arose and the Keynesian macroeconomic model or Keynesian approach appeared as opposed to the traditional, the only classical approach to the study of economic phenomena that existed until that time, i.e. microeconomic analysis (classical model).

Unlike microeconomics, which studies the economic behavior of individual (individual) business entities (consumer or producer) in individual markets, macroeconomics studies the economy as a whole, explores problems common to the entire economy, and operates with aggregate values, such as gross domestic product, national income, aggregate demand, aggregate supply, aggregate consumption, investment, general price level, unemployment rate, state debt and etc.

The main problems that macroeconomics studies are: economic growth and its pace; economic cycle and its causes; the level of employment and the problem of unemployment; the general price level and the problem of inflation; the level of the interest rate and the problem of money circulation; the state of the state budget, the problem of financing the budget deficit and the problem of public debt; balance of payments and exchange rate problems; problems of macroeconomic policy.

All these problems cannot be solved from the standpoint of microeconomic analysis, i.e. from the level of an individual consumer, an individual firm, and even an individual industry. Precisely because there are a number of such general or macroeconomic problems, there is a need for the emergence of an independent section of economic theory, an independent discipline - macroeconomics.

The importance of studying macroeconomics is as follows:

it does not just describe macroeconomic phenomena and processes, but reveals patterns and dependencies between them, explores causal relationships in the economy;
macro knowledge economic dependencies and connections allows us to assess the current situation in the economy and show what needs to be done to improve it, and, first of all, what politicians should do, i.e. allows to develop the principles of economic policy;
knowledge of macroeconomics makes it possible to foresee how processes will develop in the future, i.e. make forecasts, anticipate future economic problems.

Ex post and ex ante analysis.

There are two types of macroeconomic analysis: ex post analysis and ex ante analysis. Ex post macroeconomic analysis or national accounting, i.e. analysis of statistical data, which allows evaluating the results of economic activity, identifying problems and negative phenomena, developing an economic policy to solve and overcome them, comparative analysis economic potentials different countries. Ex ante macroeconomic analysis, i.e. predictive modeling of economic processes and phenomena based on certain theoretical concepts, which allows you to determine the patterns of development of economic processes and identify cause-and-effect relationships between economic phenomena and variables. This is macroeconomics as a science.

Methods and principles of macroeconomic analysis

In its analysis, macroeconomics uses the same methods and principles as microeconomics. These general methods and principles of economic analysis include: abstraction, (the use of models to study and explain economic processes and phenomena); combination of methods of deduction and induction; a combination of normative and positive analysis; the use of the principle "ceteris paribus", the assumption of the rationality of the behavior of economic agents, etc.

A feature of macroeconomic analysis is that its most important principle is aggregation. The study of economic dependencies and patterns at the level of the economy as a whole is possible only if we consider aggregates or aggregates. Macroeconomic analysis requires aggregation. Aggregation is a combination of individual elements into a whole, into an aggregate, into a collection. Aggregation is always based on abstraction, i.e. abstraction from non-essential moments and highlighting the most significant, essential, typical features, patterns of economic processes and phenomena. Aggregation allows you to identify: macroeconomic agents, macroeconomic markets, macroeconomic relationships, macroeconomic indicators.

Aggregation based on the identification of the most typical features of the behavior of economic agents makes it possible to single out four macroeconomic agents:

households,
firms,
state,
foreign sector.

Households is an independent, rationally operating macroeconomic agent, the purpose of which is the maximization of utility, which is in the economy: a) the owner economic resources(labor, land, capital and entrepreneurial ability). By selling economic resources, households receive income, most of which they spend on consumption (consumer spending) and therefore act as b) the main buyer of goods and services. Households save the rest of their income and are therefore c) the main saver or lender, i.e. ensure the supply of credit in the economy.

Firms is an independent, rationally operating macroeconomic agent, the purpose of which is the maximization of profits. Firms are: a) the buyer of economic resources with which the production process is ensured, and therefore firms are b) the main producer of goods and services in the economy. The proceeds received from the sale of goods and services produced, firms pay households in the form of factor income. To expand the production process, ensure capital growth and compensate for the depreciation of capital, firms need investment goods (primarily equipment), so firms are c) investors, i.e. buyers of investment goods and services. And since, as a rule, firms use borrowed funds to finance their investment expenses, they act as d) the main borrower in the economy, i.e. demand for loans.

Households and firms form the private sector of the economy.

State (government) is a collection public institutions and organizations that have the political and legal right to influence the course of economic processes, to regulate the economy. The state is an independent, rationally acting macroeconomic agent whose main task is to eliminate market failures and maximize public welfare, and therefore acts as: a) a producer of public goods; b) a buyer of goods and services to ensure the functioning of the public sector and the performance of its many functions; c) a redistributor of national income (through a system of taxes and transfers); d) depending on the state of the state budget - as a creditor or borrower in the financial market. In addition, the state acts e) the regulator and organizer of the functioning of the market economy.

It creates and provides the institutional framework for the functioning of the economy (legislative framework, security system, insurance system, tax system etc.), i.e. develops "rules of the game"; provides and controls the supply of money in the country, since it has the monopoly right to issue money; pursues macroeconomic policy, which is divided into:

structural, ensuring economic growth
market (stabilization) aimed at smoothing out cyclical fluctuations in the economy and ensuring full employment of resources, a stable price level and external economic equilibrium). The main types of stabilization policy are: a) fiscal (or fiscal) policy; b) monetary (or monetary) policy; c) foreign economic policy; d) income policy.

The private and public sectors form a closed economy.

Foreign sector (foreign sector)- unites all other countries of the world and is an independent rationally operating macroeconomic agent that interacts with this country through: a) international trade (export and import of goods and services), b) movement of capital (export and import of capital, i.e. financial assets ).

Adding the foreign sector to the analysis allows for an open economy.

Aggregation of markets is carried out in order to identify the patterns of functioning of each of them, namely: to study the features of the formation of supply and demand and the conditions for their equilibrium in each of the markets; determining the equilibrium price and equilibrium volume based on the ratio of supply and demand; analysis of the consequences of a change in equilibrium in each of the markets.

Market aggregation makes it possible to distinguish four macroeconomic markets:

market of goods and services (real market),
financial market (market of financial assets),
market of economic resources,
currency market.

To obtain an aggregated market for goods and services (goods market), we must abstract (distract) from the whole variety of goods produced by the economy and highlight the most important patterns in the functioning of this market, i.e. patterns of formation of demand and supply of goods and services. The ratio of supply and demand makes it possible to obtain the value of the equilibrium price level (price level) for goods and services and the equilibrium volume of their production (output). The market for goods and services is also called real market(real market), since real assets are sold and bought there (real values - real assets).

Financial market (market borrowed money) (financial assets market) is a market where financial assets (money, stocks and bonds) are sold and bought. This market is divided into two segments: a) the money market (money market) or the market of monetary financial assets; b) the securities market (bonds market) or the market for non-monetary financial assets. On the money market there are no processes of buying and selling (buying money for money is meaningless), however, the study of the patterns of the functioning of the money market, the formation of demand for money and the supply of money is very important for macroeconomic analysis. The study of the money market, the conditions of its equilibrium allows us to obtain the equilibrium interest rate (interest rate), which acts as the "price of money" (price of credit), and the equilibrium value of the money supply (money stock), as well as to consider the consequences of a change in equilibrium in the money market and its impact on market for goods and services. The main intermediaries in the money market are banks that accept cash deposits and issue loans.

Stocks and bonds are bought and sold on the stock market. The buyers of securities are primarily households that spend their savings to generate income (dividend on stocks and interest on bonds). Firms act as sellers (issuers) of shares, and firms and the state act as sellers of bonds. Firms issue stocks and bonds to raise funds to finance their investment spending and expand output, while the government issues bonds to finance government deficits.

The resource market in macroeconomic models is represented by the labor market, since the patterns of its functioning (the formation of labor demand and labor supply) make it possible to explain macroeconomic processes, especially in the short term. When studying the labor market, we must abstract (abstract) from all various kinds labor, differences in skill levels and vocational training. In long-term macroeconomic models, the capital market is also explored. Equilibrium of the labor market allows you to determine the equilibrium amount of labor (labor force) in the economy and the equilibrium "price of labor" - the wage rate (wage rate). An analysis of disequilibrium in the labor market makes it possible to identify the causes and forms of unemployment.

A foreign exchange market is a market in which national currencies are exchanged for each other. monetary units(currencies) of different countries (dollars for yens, marks for francs, etc.). As a result of the exchange of one national currency for another, an exchange (exchange) rate is formed.

The study of macroeconomics is becoming increasingly important in the new economic conditions.

Macroeconomics emerged in the 20th century, but its roots go back more than two centuries. The first attempt to describe the patterns of macroeconomics was made by a representative of the French school, Francois Quesnay (1694 - 1774).

He was born into a landowner's family, received an excellent medical and legal education, was the court physician of Louis XV, and enjoyed the patronage of Madame Pompadour. At the age of 64, after scientific work in medicine, F. Quesnay wrote his main work on political economy, Economic Tables (1758), where he made a brilliant attempt to analyze social reproduction from the standpoint of establishing certain balance proportions between the natural and value elements of the social product . F. Quesnay refuted the teachings of the mercantilists that exchange creates wealth; he declared the source of wealth not just labor in agriculture, but precisely the excess of the product produced over that consumed in agriculture; limitation - in that he considered labor only in agriculture as a source of wealth.

Talented students and supporters grouped around F. Quesnay: V. R. Mirabeau Sr. (1715 - 1789), Dupont de Nemours (1739 - 1817), Anne Turgot (1727 - 1781).

In the 19th century, the extended reproduction schemes of Karl Marx (1818-83) and the general equilibrium theory of the Swiss economist Léon Walras (1834-1910) appeared. L. Walras is one of the widely known theorists of the mathematical school. He developed a model of general economic equilibrium, which is based on the analysis of supply and demand and a number of systems of equations.

The catalyst for this was the "Great Depression" - the longest economic crisis in the history of industrial developed countries. It began after "Black Friday" - the collapse of stock prices on the New York Stock Exchange on October 25, 1929. The value of shares fell by 90%, the massive ruin of small investors in the United States immediately affected trade and industry. The crisis quickly spread to other countries, primarily the UK and Germany, linked by mutual financial obligations with the USA. Overcoming the crisis is associated with F. Roosevelt's New Deal.

The democratization that took place after the First World War also played an important role. The Democratic government was concerned about the catastrophic drop in the standard of living of the population and needed to develop economic ways to combat the depression.

The appearance in 1936 of the work of the English economist John Maynard Keynes "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" was directly dictated by the Great Depression and laid the foundation for macroeconomics as an independent economic science. The central idea of Keynes is that market economies are not always capable of self-regulation, as the classics believed, since there may be a certain price inflexibility.

In this case, the economy cannot independently get out of the depression due to the price mechanism, but state intervention is required in the form of incentives.
of aggregate demand. The emergence of the Keynesian approach was subsequently called the "Keynesian revolution" in economics. It should also be noted another circumstance that contributed to the formation of macroeconomics. This is the emergence of regular statistics on national accounts. The availability of data made it possible to observe and describe the dynamics and interconnection of macroeconomic phenomena, which is the first necessary step for the development of macroeconomic science.

In his book, John Keynes developed a whole system of concepts and categories new to economic science and used them as tools for functional macroeconomic analysis, which are currently used by scientists of all schools and areas of economic theory. Keynes singled out the following key problems of macroeconomics: identification of factors that determine the level of employment in the economy, and methods of combating unemployment; study of the role of money in the economy and the factors that determine the demand for money; analysis of the role of the interest rate as the main element of the transmission mechanism that ensures the relationship between the markets for goods and money. In the future, in the process of development of science, problems were added to them. economic dynamics, inflation and others.

The book of J. Keynes contains a theoretical substantiation of the reasons why market economy may lose the ability to automatically maintain full employment. J. Keynes showed that the equilibrium level of income can also arise in conditions of underutilization of the society's productive resources. At the same time, in addition to theoretical analysis and the introduction of a new commentary on such an analysis, J. Keynes developed the principles of the state's anti-crisis policy.

Until the mid 1960s. practically all macroeconomics developed within the framework of the ideas formulated by J. Keynes and developed by his supporters - American economists J. Hicks (1904-89), Alvin Hansen (1887-1975), Paul Samuelson (b. 1915) and others. However, from the beginning of 70 -s.

the unanimity that prevailed among economists regarding the basic postulates of Keynesian theory was broken. A new problem arose: the combination of stagnation with high inflation. Many saw the reason for this situation in the active intervention of the government in the economy. The so-called Keynesian counter-revolution took place. The answer was the revision of the classical paradigm and the emergence of the doctrine of monetarism, led by its founder Milton Friedman. They returned to the idea of self-regulating markets and brought the money supply to center stage. A stable money supply, rather than constantly changing it to carry out an activist Keynesian policy, is the key to a stable macroeconomic situation according to the monetarists. Monetarism spawned new wave economic theories that were based on the self-regulation of markets and formed neoclassical macroeconomics. In parallel, an alternative neo-Keynesian direction was also developing, but now on the basis of appropriate microeconomic behavioral models.

By the turn of the century, two dominant schools of thought emerged in macroeconomics, neoclassical and post-Keynesian, based on different premises and, most importantly, formulating diametrically opposed recommendations for macroeconomic policy.

All this suggests that macroeconomics, as part of the general economic theory, is constantly developing, covering and including all new aspects. economic activity.

In the scientific literature, one can find a variety of definitions of macroeconomics. Here are two of the most successful:

1) Macroeconomics is a branch of economic science that studies the functioning of the economy as a whole in terms of ensuring the conditions for sustainable economic growth.
hundred, full employment of resources to minimize the rate of inflation.

2) Macroeconomics is the science of aggregated behavior in the economy.

The subject of macroeconomics is the range of problems that it is designed to study.

However, among scientists there is still no complete unity of opinion on this matter. Thus, some economists (as follows from the basic definition of macroeconomics) consider three main problems to be the subject: employment, inflation and economic growth. Others bring the number of major macroeconomic problems to 2-3 dozen. However, here, probably, one should recall the great Aristotle, who called for looking for the “golden mean” in everything and avoiding extremes. Therefore, we single out seven macroeconomic problems or the macroeconomic "magnificent seven":

1) determination of the volume and structure of the national product and ND;

2) identifying the factors that regulate employment across the economy;

3) analysis of the nature of inflation;

4) study of the mechanism and factors of economic growth;

5) consideration of the causes of cyclical fluctuations and market changes in the economy;

6) study of foreign economic interaction of national economies;

7) theoretical substantiation of the goals, content and forms of implementation of the macroeconomic policy of the state.

The importance of studying macroeconomics is as follows:

1) it does not just describe macroeconomic phenomena and processes, but reveals patterns and dependencies between them, explores causal relationships in the economy;

2) knowledge of macroeconomic dependencies and relationships allows us to assess the current situation in the economy and show what needs to be done to improve it, and, first of all, what politicians should do, i.e. allows to develop the principles of economic policy;

3) knowledge of macroeconomics makes it possible to foresee how processes will develop in the future, i.e. make forecasts, anticipate future economic problems.

The macroeconomic approach to the study of economic processes has a number of features:

It is aimed at studying the principles of formation of aggregate indicators that characterize the level or trends in the development of the economy as a whole (national income, total employment and investment, price level). The main subjects of the economy (producers and consumers) are also considered as aggregated aggregates;

Unlike microeconomic analysis, in which the decisions of firms and consumers and their actions in individual markets were considered independent, macroeconomics considers the interactions between actors through a system of interconnected markets;

The number of economic entities that determine the state and development of the economy (firms, households, the state, as well as subjects of other countries) is expanding.

At the same time, it should be remembered that the object of study of macroeconomics is constantly being transformed, and therefore the range of problems that require new understanding is also changing. Unlike microeconomics, the subject of which is very stable, macroeconomics cannot be considered a fully defined science. There is a wide variety
nyh schools interpreting the ongoing economic processes are very ambiguous and peculiar. And although the Anglo-Saxon direction still dominates in the world of macroeconomic science, in recent decades the positions and authority of scientists from Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Japan, China and a number of other countries have been significantly strengthened. There are attempts to create a Russian macroeconomic science, although it should be recognized that domestic macroeconomists are only taking the first steps.

Macroeconomics performs the following functions.

Cognitive: study, analysis and explanation of economic processes and phenomena.

Prognostic: identifying and evaluating the prospects for economic development and economic conditions.

Ideological: the formation of a certain worldview on various economic issues affecting the interests of the whole society.

Distinguish between positive and normative macroeconomics.

Positive macroeconomics aims to explain the essence of ongoing economic processes and phenomena and develop recommendations for economic policy based on the analysis of real economic parameters. That is, positive macroeconomics deals with the analysis of economic facts and aims to build an economic model that is free from subjective judgments. Positive macroeconomic claims can be statistically confirmed or refuted. For example, a typical positive judgment: "state budget revenues are directly dependent on the income tax rate."

Normative macroeconomics expresses worldview, ideological principles, postulates and prescriptions
economic behavior, which serve as the basis for assessing the desirability of certain results of economic activity. That is, normative macroeconomics is a set of subjective judgments about how the economy should function. So, for example, statements like "the poor should not pay taxes", "taxation should be based on a progressive scale" are normative.

Positive and normative judgments in macroeconomics are quite closely interconnected. On the one hand, positive theory serves as the basis for choosing fundamental normative statements, on the other hand, normative postulates, under certain conditions, can serve as the basis for creating a new or special macroeconomic concept. In addition, in macroeconomics, due to the specifics of its subject, a positive analysis is often based on subjective assessments of the initial postulates of economic development and the behavior of economic entities. It should be noted that some macroeconomic issues are relevant to the economy of a country, and some may have implications for a number of countries (for example, world oil or financial crises). In this case, we are dealing with global macroeconomic analysis.

The peculiarity of the subject of macroeconomic analysis determines the use in macroeconomics of concepts that are not found in microeconomics.

As generalizing indicators of the results of the functioning of the national economy for a certain period, such aggregates are used as:

Gross domestic product (GDP)

Gross national product (GNP)

Net national product (NNP)

National Income (ND)

Personal income of citizens (LD)

These indicators form the System of National Accounts (SNA), which is a system of economic information used throughout the world to describe and analyze economic activity at the macro level. SNA data are widely used by government bodies in the formation of macroeconomic policy. They are also increasingly used by entrepreneurs and managers to analyze the overall macroeconomic climate and to build macroeconomic models, etc. modern world The SNA is a universal economic and statistical language in which economists of all schools and directions, statisticians, statesmen, politicians, sociologists, specialists in public administration, financiers, diplomats, etc. communicate with each other.

Economists believe that a comprehensive indicator of economic development and the best indicator of the state of the economy are GDP and GNP, which form the basis of the SNA. Both concepts represent the total market value of all final products (goods and services) produced by a country during a certain period.

As you know, the general methods of economic theory include the following: the method of induction and deduction, the method of analogy, the method of scientific abstraction, the method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete, the method of analysis and synthesis, the method of combining the historical and logical in the study.

Let's take a closer look at the common methods first:

1. Analysis is a method of cognition that involves the division of the whole into separate constituent parts and the study of each of these parts. An example is the study of the patterns of formation of market demand by studying various factors that determine it - prices, consumer incomes, their preferences, etc.

2. Synthesis is a method of knowledge based on the connection separate parts phenomena studied in the process of analysis into a single whole. Thus, market demand and its dynamics can be correctly understood only when it is considered as a unity of its constituent and determining components - prices, consumer incomes, etc. Analysis and synthesis act as two interrelated aspects of the cognition process.

3. Induction - a method of cognition based on inferences from the particular to the general. For example, the utility for a particular consumer of each subsequent instance of a similar good acquired by him decreases. From this we can conclude that all consumers of this product will be ready to continue to buy this product only if the price of it decreases.

4. Deduction (in the application of which, as you know, Sherlock Holmes was strong) is a method of cognition that involves inferences from the general to the particular. For example, a general conclusion: the military has excellent posture. Seeing a man on the street even in civilian clothes, you can conclude from his excellent bearing that he has something to do with the army. By the way,
this is how Sherlock Holmes guessed the former profession of Dr. Watson, a military doctor.

5. Analogy - a method of cognition that involves the transfer of properties from a known phenomenon or process to unknown ones. At the same time, achievements in various fields of knowledge can be used. Thus, the comparison of monetary circulation with blood circulation in the human body is widely used. Equilibrium in the market is conditionally similar to equilibrium in its physical sense.

Economics makes extensive use of the method of scientific abstraction. It consists in highlighting the main thing in the object of study and abstraction from the insignificant, random, temporary, non-permanent. The level of abstraction may be different depending on the tasks that the researcher sets himself. The more general the revealed patterns are, the greater the level of abstraction can be. Of course, abstraction is always poorer than concrete reality, but without it it is impossible to formulate the scientific categories with which economic science operates. These categories express the essence of individual aspects of the objects under study. Thus, for example, the widely used category of “quantity of demand”, which reflects the relationship between the quantity of a product that consumers are ready to buy and the price of its unit, involves abstraction from many parameters that characterize the behavior of consumers in the market - changes in their incomes, tastes, preferences. , the presence of traditions, personal characteristics of individual consumers, etc.

In the process of research, there is a movement from the abstract to the concrete, followed by a possible formulation economic laws as categories reflecting the most stable internal and external relations of the object.

The methods of economic theory in moving towards the truth are used in the unity of the historical and the logical. Elements of economic systems, internal and external, are logical
and are in constant historical motion. Consequently, without taking into account the unity of historical and logical, economic research will not be sufficiently complete and accurate.

Macroeconomic models are formalized descriptions of economic phenomena and processes in order to identify functional dependencies between them. Models simply reflect the reality in one way or another. It must be borne in mind that the model is only an abstract reflection (“pale shadow”) of reality, a kind of tool with which researchers try to reveal certain regular connections of economic life. Therefore, it is impossible to demand too much from the model and even more so to absolutize even the most remarkable model construction.

The macroeconomic model makes it possible to determine endogenous (internal) economic variables, the values of which are determined as a result of revealing its patterns of functioning. Other variables that do not try to explain based on the decision of the model, but are accepted as something given from the outside, are called exogenous (external) economic variables. The goal of macroeconomics is to explain the development of endogenous variables given the existing exogenous ones. At the same time, it is necessary to be aware that the distinction between endogenous and exogenous variables is sometimes relative. Thus, decisions taken by the government in the field of fiscal and monetary policy (which are sometimes interpreted as exogenous variables) are a response to a specific economic situation and therefore can be considered as endogenous variables. It is also not surprising that the same variables in some economic schools are treated as exogenous, in others - as endogenous. For example, monetarists take the money supply in the country as an eq.
zogenic value, and Keynesians consider it as an endogenous factor.

Along with the classification of economic variables as endogenous and exogenous, another grouping is also important, related to the way they are measured over time. Stock variables can be measured only at a certain point in time and characterize the state of the object of study on a certain date - the beginning or end of the year, etc. Examples of a stock are government debt, the amount of capital in the economy, the total number of unemployed, and so on.

The flow variables are measured per unit of time (per month, per quarter, per year, etc.) and characterize the actual "flow" of economic processes over time: the amount of consumer spending per year, the volume of investments per year, the number of people who lost their jobs during the quarter, and etc.

Flows cause changes in stocks: the accumulation of budget deficits over a number of years leads to an increase in public debt; change in capital stock at the end current year compared to its value at the end of last year can be represented as a flow net investment per year, etc. The relationship between stocks and flows forms the basis of the original macroeconomic model of circular flows.

Walras's law is considered the main economic principle: if there is an equilibrium in all markets except one, then the last market is also in equilibrium.

Macroeconomics explores National economy as a whole, i.e., the entire set of markets. However, this does not mean at all that it studies the entire infinite number of national markets. Macroeconomics usually reduces the number of studied markets to four aggregated ones:

ї> the market of goods (ie, the totality of all markets for goods and services);

ї> the securities market (the totality of all securities markets);

f> the labor market (the totality of all labor markets);

P the money market (the totality of all money markets).

Sometimes, however, such macroeconomic markets are also distinguished: 1. The financial market, consisting of the money market and the securities market; 2. The market of goods, consisting of the market for goods and the market for services; 3. The market for factors of production, consisting of the labor market and the capital market.

Thus, macroeconomics is a section of modern economic theory that studies the economy as a whole, as well as its most important components (business, public sector, etc.).

The subject of macroeconomic theory is the study of macroeconomic phenomena that are not associated with any one sector of the economy, but are related to all sectors of the economy and should receive a general (macroeconomic) explanation. It should be noted that some macroeconomic issues relate to the economy of the country, and some may have implications for a number of countries (for example, global oil or financial crises).

Macroeconomics and microeconomics are closely related and interact with each other. Microeconomics underlies macroeconomics. A significant gap between these two sciences existed at the dawn of the emergence of macroeconomics and is gradually narrowing more and more.

Unlike microeconomics, which studies the economic behavior of individual (individual) economic
(consumer or producer) in individual markets, macroeconomics studies the economy as a whole, examines problems common to the entire economy, and operates with aggregates such as gross domestic product, national income, aggregate demand, aggregate supply, aggregate consumption, investment , general price level, unemployment rate, public debt, etc.

Macroeconomics also considers the following aggregate markets: the goods market, the labor market, the money market, and the securities market.

Macroeconomics, as a branch of science that emerged from general economic theory, operates with all typical economic methods.

The general methods of macroeconomics include the following: the method of induction and deduction, the method of analogy, the method of scientific abstraction, the method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete, the method of analysis and synthesis, the method of combining the historical and logical in the study.

Specific methods of macroeconomics include: aggregation, macroeconomic modeling and the principle of equilibrium.