Ask HN: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?

1) Professors who compete for prestige and make fun sounding theories like MMT and tend to have very little skin in the game if their theories create value.

2) Portfolio managers who stand to make or lose enormous sums of money if they can make detailed and accurate predictions based off of macroeconomic analysis.

I'd rather spend my time listening to group 2. If you want to listen to what people like that are thinking about markets in real time, there are plenty of youtube channels and podcasts where you can do that:

Recently my favorite is blockworks Macro (diverged off a crypto channel but this is their non crypto macro content) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkrwgzhIBKccuDsi_SvZtnQ

If you want to understand what some of the lingo and concepts mean, NPRs whiteboard series is where I send most people

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF11rk1M_Rw&list=PLA33D9F40D...

Source: I have a degree in economics and trade my own money.

Economics is one of the most important disciplines to understand even at a base level. So much of the world and human behavior can be explained in terms of supply and demand.

1) Risk Parity: How to Invest for All Market Environments

2) Balanced Asset Allocation: How to Profit in Any Economic Climate

I've always felt that macroeconomics is a subject that's best learned from a tutor. There are so many different concepts in macroeconomics that you need to get a good grasp on. Each of these concepts are equally as important as each other and there are so many of them that it's hard to learn everything on your own. You can read all the textbooks and see all the YouTube videos you want but there is nothing like having someone highly specialized teach you the material and help you apply it.

If you don't have the time or money for a tutor, try taking a macroeconomics course at a local community college. This option will be cheaper than hiring a private tutor but still provide you with the guidance and direction you need to learn macroeconomics properly.

Best of luck!

Economists focus on the economy and how it affects individuals, businesses, and society as a whole. Macroeconomists look at the big picture: GDP growth, unemployment, inflation, productivity growth, business cycles, and so on.

Macroeconomics is the study of how national economies work. It looks at things like gross domestic product (GDP), unemployment rates, and inflation rates.

It also tries to figure out why some countries have high or low economic growth rates compared to others.

The key question macroeconomists ask is: How can I learn macroeconomics properly?

https://mru.org/principles-economics-macroeconomics-0

This is not remotely true with respect to macroeconomics. It's absolutely routine that you can find even two orthodox economists (or hedge fund managers, or other practical folks if you prefer) who look at the same situation and predict incompatible outcomes. You don't even need to go down the various heterodox rabbit holes; people ostensibly operating from the same theory routinely make opposed predictions.

It's still worth learning some of the vocabulary, because it is useful for understanding what people are talking about. Of course learning is also gratifying for its own sake, and don't let anyone dissuade you if that's what you're up to. Still, I don't think it makes sense to learn macroeconomics on an expert level for a practical purpose. I don't think it's possible to define what an "expert level" even is.

He's got quite a few (albeit politically tinted) interviews with the Hoover Foundation on Youtube.

None of this has anything to do with being good at investing on a personal level. Like nothing, in fact I would argue that it’s probably harmful and in my experience causes people to overthink things.

Economics as a profession has a fucking terrible track record of predicting financial markets or broad macroeconomic trends. At this point I’m not sure it’s even clear what economics is for but I can say with confidence that it’s definitely not the place to start if you want to get better at investing.

The best thing you can do is be open to hearing all opinion/theories. Some people will contradict others, but over time you figure out who is right and who is not.

In addition, I also watch a few indices in my stock app for a high level overview. These are the treasury yields, corporate credit spreads, dollar index, s&p 500, nasdaq, etc. I used to follow much more, but it's not needed for higher level macro.

That said, Romer's Advanced Macroeconomics, Acemoğlu's Intro to Modern Economic Growth and Ljungqvist and Sargent's Recursive Macro Theory are good books.

But if you want to be a good investor, just put your money into index funds. You'll easily outperform a large majority.

edit: in addition, the topics you're looking for are only very loosely related to macro. You're looking more into monetary policy, asset pricing and financial economics. Don't take the advice of people who bundle them all together.

Having an interest in these topics myself, I find that they are less about macroeconomics as a whole, which, in the mainstream formulation, is about national income accounting, aggregate demand, general equilibrium, production functions, the business cycle, etc., and are more about the microeconomics of particular markets e.g. the market for money, the market for bonds. I'd have a solid grasp of microeconomics, and then learn national income accounting (`C + I + G + X - M = Y` i.e. the sum of consumption, investment & government spending, less imports equals the national income (GDP/GNP), as well as the capital accounts identities), some ideas about the business cycle and maybe a bit about aggregate demand. Then I'd dive into something purely about money and banking. You'll have the tools you need to think about how markets work, and ideas like the efficient market hypothesis should make sense (within the frame of the model).

I learned this stuff in school, so it's hard for me to give great concrete advice beyond topics, but I've heard good things about Sowell's "Basic Economics," Malkiel's "A Random Walk down Wall Street," and then a personal favorite of mine Vernon Smith's "Rationality in Economics." The latter is truly insightful, but might be difficult if you don't have some of the ground matter (e.g. "what are supply and demand?" "What is a firm?") covered first.

Modern macroeconomics is an extremely controversial field to say the least and if you start from top (the propaganda-like crazy statements that both sides make), the result would be that none of the viewpoints would ever make any sense to you :)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNEouYM5wRE&list=PLSuwqsAnJM...