What Macro Tries to Explain
Read GDP, inflation, unemployment, interest rates, and trade balances as one system.
Output and incomeReal and nominalBusiness cycles
Coming soon
Macro Textbook
A novice-to-expert macroeconomics progression authored by Mark.
The route is open now as the public chapter spine. The full textbook will connect concepts, models, policy cases, data exercises, and research-level judgment in one clean sequence.
Author
Mark
Built as a structured reading path, not a pile of notes.
Public chapter spine
Concept-first reading paths
Worked examples and model bridges
Problem sets and data labs
Instructor-ready release
Progression
Chapter Spine
The sequence starts with measurement, then moves into mechanisms, open-economy constraints, growth, and crisis analysis.
I. Orientation
The minimum map: output, prices, labor, money, and the external sector.
Measurement Before Opinion
Separate definitions, data construction, and interpretation before making a policy claim.
GDPCPI and PCEUnemployment rateCurrent account
II. Core Mechanisms
How shocks travel through demand, supply, labor markets, prices, and balance sheets.
Demand, Supply, and Output Gaps
Use AD-AS, IS-LM, and output-gap logic without confusing identities for causes.
Aggregate demandAggregate supplyIS-LM
Labor Markets and Inflation
Connect unemployment, participation, wage setting, expectations, and the Phillips curve.
Labor slackNAIRUPhillips curve
Money, Credit, and Banking
Move beyond the simple multiplier into deposits, lending, reserves, and financial conditions.
M1 and M2Bank lendingCredit spreads
III. Open-Economy Macro
Why domestic macro changes when trade, capital mobility, exchange rates, and global supply chains enter.
Trade, Capital Flows, and the Balance of Payments
Read the current account and financial account as matching entries, not rival scorecards.
Current accountCapital flowsExternal liabilities
Exchange Rates and Policy Autonomy
Use Mundell-Fleming and the impossible trinity to understand why regimes constrain policy.
Exchange ratesCapital mobilityPolicy trilemma
IV. Growth, Crises, and Research Frontiers
Long-run capacity, productivity, instability, and the models used when simple diagrams stop working.
Growth Accounting and Productivity
Decompose growth into capital, labor, and TFP, then ask what the residual is really capturing.
SolowEndogenous growthInstitutions
Financial Stability and Macro Crises
Study leverage, collateral, liquidity, contagion, and policy backstops as macro mechanisms.
Financial acceleratorSystemic riskMacroprudential policy
Model Choice and Judgment
Know when to use theory, empirical forecasting, DSGE, agent-based simulation, or comparison.
Model selectionIdentificationForecast discipline
Start here
Strategic Concept Entry Points
Use these published concept routes while the textbook chapters are being written.