What is macroeconomics

Macroeconomics is the field of economics that deals with aggregated quantities. Microeconomics, for example, might deal with firm level economics, while macroeconomics might deal with aggregate firms level economics, the economics of all the firms in an economy together. Macroeconomics therefore includes the study of national level and supranational level economics.

What kind of indicators are macroeconomic?

Macroeconomic indicators include trade indicators, like the trade balance, and trade openness, but also indicators that describe other facets of the economy. These range from productivity indicators to consumption and price indicators. For example, productivity can be measured by factor or total factor, consumption can be measured by household, non-profit-institution serving household, and production input, while prices can be measured in a variety of ways, including headline and/or core prices.

How are macroeconomics and data science related?

Macroeconomics, like international trade, deals with data that has been collected according to different specifications and classifications. This means working with macroeconomic data can be heavy on the data wrangling. Data need to be harmonized, and often aggregated or disaggregated, before they are fed into various stages along the research pipeline. Data science and macroeconomics are complementary because data science can greatly improve the efficiency and accuracy of macroeconomic data and indicator compilation.