Macroeconomics is a branch of economics that deals with the performance, structure, behaviorr and decision-making of the entire economy,

be that a national, regional, or the global economy. With microeconomicss, macroeconomics is one of the two most general fields in economics. Macroeconomists study aggregated indicators such as GDP, unemployment rates, and price indices to understand how the whole economy functions. Macroeconomists develop models that explain the relationship between such factors as national income, output, consumption, unemployment, inflation, savings, investment, international trade and international finance. In contrast, microeconomics is primarily focused on the actions of individual agents, such as firms and consumers, and how their behavior determines prices and quantities in specific markets. While macroeconomics is a broad field of study, there are two areas of research that are emblematic of the discipline: the attempt to understand the causes and consequences of short-run fluctuations in national income (the business cycle), and the attempt to understand the determinants of long-run economic growth (increases in national income).

Economic Development

Economic development is the increase in the amount of people in a nation's population with sustained growth from a simple, low-income economy to a modern, high-income economy. Its scope includes the process and policies by which a nation improves the economic, political, and social well-being of its people. Gonalo L Fonsesca at the New School for Social Research defines economic development as "the analysis of the economic development of nations."[4] The University of Iowa's Center for International Finance and Development states that: "'Economic development' is a term that economists, politicians, and others have used frequently in the 20th century. The concept, however, has been in existence in the West for centuries. Modernization, Westernization, and especially Industrialization are other terms people have used when discussing economic development. Although no one is sure when the concept originated, most people agree that development is closely bound up with the evolution of capitalism and the demise of feudalism." The study of economic development by social scientist encompasses theories of the causes of industrial-economic modernization, plus organizational and related aspects of enterprise development in modern societies. It embraces sociological research on business organization and enterprise development from a historical and comparative perspective; specific processes of the evolution (growth, modernization) of markets and management-employee relations; and culturally related cross-national similarities and differences in patterns of industrial organization in contemporary Western societies. On the subject of the nature and causes of the considerable variations that exist in levels of industrial-economic growth and performance internationally, it seeks answers to such questions as: "Why are levels of direct foreign investment and labour productivity significantly higher in some countries than in others?" Mansell and Wehn state that development has been understood since the second World War to involve economic growth, increases in per capita income, and attainment of a standard of living equivalent to that of industrialized countries
Economic Growth

Economic growth is the increase of per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or other measure of aggregate income. It is often measured as the rate of change in GDP. Economic growth refers only to the quantity of goods and services produced. Economic growth can be either positive or negative. Negative growth can be referred to by saying that the economy is shrinking. Negative growth is associated with economic recession and economic depression

Economic Growth vs Economic Development

Economic development refers to social and technological progress. It implies a change in the way goods and services are produced, not merely an increase in production achieved using the old methods of production on a wider scale. Economic growth implies only an increase in quantitative output; it may or may not involve development. Economic growth is often measured by rate of change of gross domestic product (eg., percent GDP increase per year.)Gross domestic product is the aggregate value-added by the economic activity within a country's borders. Economic development typically involves improvements in a variety of indicators such as literacy rates, life expectancy, and poverty rates. GDP does not take into account other aspects such as leisure time, environmental quality, freedom, or social justice; alternative measures of economic wellbeing have been proposed. A country's economic development is related to its human development, which encompasses, among other things, health and education

Balance of Trade The balance of trade (or net exports, sometimes symbolized as NX) is the difference between the monetary value of exports and imports of output in an economy over a certain period. It is the relationship between a nation's imports and exports. A positive or favorable balance of trade is known as a trade surplus if it consists of exporting more than is imported; a negative or unfavorable balance is referred to as a trade deficit or, informally, a trade gap. The balance of trade is sometimes divided into a goods and a services balance

The balance of trade forms part of the current account, which includes other transactions such as income from the international investment position as well as international aid. If the current account is in surplus, the country's net international asset position increases correspondingly. Equally, a deficit decreases the net international asset position. The trade balance is identical to the difference between a country's output and its domestic demand (the difference between what goods a country produces and how many goods it buys from abroad; this does not include money re-spent on foreign stock, nor does it factor in the concept of importing goods to produce for the domestic market). Measuring the balance of trade can be problematic because of problems with recording and collecting data. As an illustration of this problem, when official data for all the world's countries are added up, exports exceed imports by almost 1%; it appears the world is running a positive balance of trade with itself. This cannot be true, because all transactions involve an equal credit or debit in the account of each nation. The discrepancy is widely believed to be explained by transactions intended to launder money or evade taxes, smuggling and other visibility problems. However, especially for developed countries, accuracy is likely. Factors that can affect the balance of trade include:

The cost of production (land, labor, capital, taxes, incentives, etc.) in the exporting economy vis--vis those in the importing economy; The cost and availability of raw materials, intermediate goods and other inputs; Exchange rate movements; Multilateral, bilateral and unilateral taxes or restrictions on trade; Non-tariff barriers such as environmental, health or safety standards; The availability of adequate foreign exchange with which to pay for imports; and Prices of goods manufactured at home (influenced by the responsiveness of supply)

In addition, the trade balance is likely to differ across the business cycle. In export-led growth (such as oil and early industrial goods), the balance of trade will improve during an economic expansion. However, with domestic demand led growth (as in the United States and Australia) the trade balance will worsen at the same stage in the business cycle.

Export led Growth Export-led growth is an economic strategy used by some developing countries. This strategy seeks to find a niche in the world economy for a certain type of export. Industries producing this export may receive governmental subsidies and better access to the local markets. By implementing this strategy, countries hope to gain enough hard currency to import commodities manufactured more cheaply somewhere else

Importance
Export-led growth is important for mainly two reasons. The first is that export-led growth can create profit, allowing a country to balance their finances, as well as surpass their debts as long as the facilities and materials for the export exist. The second, much more debatable reason is that increased export growth can trigger greater productivity, thus creating more exports in an upward spiral cycle.[3] The importance of this concept can be shown in the model below from J.S.L McCombie and A.P. Thirwall's Economic Growth and the Balance-of-Payments Constraint. yB is the balance of payments constraint, meaning the relationship between expenditures and profits yA is the actual growth capacity of a country, which can never be more than the current capacity yC is the current capacity of growth, or how well the country is producing at that moment (i) yB=yA=yC: balance-of-payments equilibrium and full employment (ii) yB=yA<yC: balance-ofpayments equilibrium and growing unemployment (iii)yB<yA=yC: increasing balance-ofpayments deficit and full employment (iv) yB<yA<yC: increasing balance-of-payments deficit and growing unemployment (v) yB>yA=yC: increasing balance-of-payments surplus and full employment (vi) yB>yA<yC: increasing balance-of-payments surplus and growing unemployment (McCombie 423)

Countries with unemployment and balance-of-payments problems look to export-led growth because of the possibility of moving to either situation (i) or situation (v).
Balance of Trade The balance of trade (or net exports, sometimes symbolized as NX) is the difference between the monetary value of exports and imports of output in an economy over a certain period. It is the relationship between a nation's imports and exports. A positive or favorable balance of trade is known as a trade surplus if it consists of exporting more than is imported; a negative or unfavorable balance is referred to as a trade deficit or, informally, a trade gap. The balance of trade is sometimes divided into a goods and a services balance

Inflation In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services; consequently, inflation is also an erosion in the purchasing power of money a loss of real value in the internal medium of exchange and unit of account in the economy. A chief measure of price inflation is the inflation rate, the annualized percentage change in a general price index (normally the Consumer Price Index) over time.[4] Inflation's effects on an economy are manifold and can be simultaneously positive and negative. Negative effects of inflation include a decrease in the real value of money and other monetary items over time; uncertainty about future inflation may discourage investment and saving, or may lead to reductions in investment of productive capital and increase savings in non-producing assets. e.g. selling stocks and buying gold. This can reduce overall economic productivity rates, as the capital required to retool companies becomes more elusive or expensive. High inflation may lead to shortages of goods if consumers begin hoarding out of concern that prices will increase in the future. Positive effects include a mitigation of economic recessions,[5] and debt relief by reducing the real level of debt. High rates of inflation and hyperinflation can be caused by an excessive growth of the money supply.[6] Views on which factors determine low to moderate rates of inflation are more varied. Low or moderate inflation may be attributed to fluctuations in real demand for goods and services, or changes in available supplies such as during scarcities, as well as to growth in the money supply. However, the consensus view is that a long sustained period of inflation is caused by money supply growing faster than the rate of economic growth

Human development index The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite statistic used to rank countries by level of "human development" and separate developed (high development), developing (middle development), and underdeveloped (low development) countries. The statistic is composed from data on life expectancy, education and per-capita GDP (as an indicator of standard of living) collected at the national level using the formula given in the Methodology section below

Gross domestic product The gross domestic product (GDP) or gross domestic income (GDI) is a measure of a country's overall official economic output. It is the market value of all final goods and services officially made within the borders of a country in a year. It is often positively correlated with the standard of living,[1] though its use as a stand-in for measuring the standard of living has come under increasing criticism and many countries are actively exploring alternative measures to GDP for that purpose

GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should in principle give the same result. They are the product (or output) approach, the income approach, and the expenditure approach. The most direct of the three is the product approach, which sums the outputs of every class of enterprise to arrive at the total. The expenditure approach works on the principle that all of the product must be bought by somebody, therefore the value of the total product must be equal to people's total expenditures in buying things. The income approach works on the principle that the incomes of the productive factors ("producers," colloquially) must be equal to the value of their product, and determines GDP by finding the sum of all producers' incomes.[3] Example: the expenditure method:
GDP = private consumption + gross investment + government spending + (exports imports), or

Income Approach

This method measures GDP by adding the incomes that firms pay households for the factors of production they hire- wages for labor, interest for capital, rent for land and profits for entrepreneurship. --The US "National Income and Expenditure Accounts" divide incomes into five categories:

1. Wages, salaries, and supplementary labour income 2. Corporate profits 3. Interest and miscellaneous investment income 4. Farmers income 5. Income from non-farm unincorporated businesses (**These five income components sum to net domestic income at factor cost.)

--Two adjustments must be made to get GDP: 1. Indirect taxes minus subsidies are added to get from factor cost to market prices. 2. Depreciation (or capital consumption) is added to get from net domestic product to gross domestic product.

[edit] Expenditure approach

In contemporary economies, most things produced are produced for sale, and sold. Therefore, measuring the total expenditure of money used to buy things is a way of measuring production. This is known as the expenditure method of calculating GDP. Note that if you knit yourself a sweater, it is production but does not get counted as GDP because it is never sold. Sweaterknitting is a small part of the economy, but if one counts some major activities such as childrearing (generally unpaid) as production, GDP ceases to be an accurate indicator of production. Similarly, if there is a long term shift from non-market provision of services (for example cooking, cleaning, child rearing, do-it yourself repairs) to market provision of services, then this trend toward increased market provision of services may mask a dramatic decrease in actual domestic production, resulting in overly optimistic and inflated reported GDP. This is particularly a problem for economies which have shifted from production economies to service economies.
[edit] Components of GDP by expenditure

Components of U.S. GDP

GDP (Y) is a sum of Consumption (C), Investment (I), Government Spending (G) and Net Exports (X - M).
Y = C + I + G + (X M)

Here is a description of each GDP component:

C (consumption) is normally the largest GDP component in the economy, consisting of private (household final consumption expenditure) in the economy. These personal expenditures fall under one of the following categories: durable goods, non-durable goods, and services.

Examples include food, rent, jewelry, gasoline, and medical expenses but does not include the purchase of new housing. I (investment) includes business investment in equipments for example and does not include exchanges of existing assets. Examples include construction of a new mine, purchase of software, or purchase of machinery and equipment for a factory. Spending by households (not government) on new houses is also included in Investment. In contrast to its colloquial meaning, 'Investment' in GDP does not mean purchases of financial products. Buying financial products is classed as 'saving', as opposed to investment. This avoids double-counting: if one buys shares in a company, and the company uses the money received to buy plant, equipment, etc., the amount will be counted toward GDP when the company spends the money on those things; to also count it when one gives it to the company would be to count two times an amount that only corresponds to one group of products. Buying bonds or stocks is a swapping of deeds, a transfer of claims on future production, not directly an expenditure on products. G (government spending) is the sum of government expenditures on final goods and services. It includes salaries of public servants, purchase of weapons for the military, and any investment expenditure by a government. It does not include any transfer payments, such as social security or unemployment benefits. X (exports) represents gross exports. GDP captures the amount a country produces, including goods and services produced for other nations' consumption, therefore exports are added. M (imports) represents gross imports. Imports are subtracted since imported goods will be included in the terms G, I, or C, and must be deducted to avoid counting foreign supply as domestic.

A fully equivalent definition is that GDP (Y) is the sum of final consumption expenditure (FCE), gross capital formation (GCF), and net exports (X - M).
Y = FCE + GCF+ (X M)

FCE can then be further broken down by three sectors (households, governments and non-profit institutions serving households) and GCF by five sectors (non-financial corporations, financial corporations, households, governments and non-profit institutions serving households). The advantage of this second definition is that expenditure is systematically broken down, firstly, by type of final use (final consumption or capital formation) and, secondly, by sectors making the expenditure, whereas the first definition partly follows a mixed delimitation concept by type of final use and sector. Note that C, G, and I are expenditures on final goods and services; expenditures on intermediate goods and services do not count. (Intermediate goods and services are those used by businesses to produce other goods and services within the accounting year.[4] ) According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, which is responsible for calculating the national accounts in the United States, :In general, the source data for the expenditures components are considered more reliable than those for the income components [see income method, below]."[5]

[edit] Examples of GDP component variables

C, I, G, and NX(net exports): If a person spends money to renovate a hotel to increase occupancy rates, the spending represents private investment, but if he buys shares in a consortium to execute the renovation, it is saving. The former is included when measuring GDP (in I), the latter is not. However, when the consortium conducted its own expenditure on renovation, that expenditure would be included in GDP. If a hotel is a private home, spending for renovation would be measured as consumption, but if a government agency converts the hotel into an office for civil servants, the spending would be included in the public sector spending, or G. If the renovation involves the purchase of a chandelier from abroad, that spending would be counted as C, G, or I (depending on whether a private individual, the government, or a business is doing the renovation), but then counted again as an import and subtracted from the GDP so that GDP counts only goods produced within the country. If a domestic producer is paid to make the chandelier for a foreign hotel, the payment would not be counted as C, G, or I, but would be counted as an export.

GDP real growth rates for 2008 [edit] Income approach

Another way of measuring GDP is to measure total income. If GDP is calculated this way it is sometimes called Gross Domestic Income (GDI), or GDP(I). GDI should provide the same amount as the expenditure method described above. (By definition, GDI = GDP. In practice, however, measurement errors will make the two figures slightly off when reported by national statistical agencies.) Total income can be subdivided according to various schemes, leading to various formulae for GDP measured by the income approach. A common one is:
GDP = compensation of employees + gross operating surplus + gross mixed income + taxes less subsidies on production and imports GDP = COE + GOS + GMI + TP & M - SP & M

Compensation of employees (COE) measures the total remuneration to employees for work done. It includes wages and salaries, as well as employer contributions to social security and other such programs. Gross operating surplus (GOS) is the surplus due to owners of incorporated businesses. Often called profits, although only a subset of total costs are subtracted from gross output to calculate GOS. Gross mixed income (GMI) is the same measure as GOS, but for unincorporated businesses. This often includes most small businesses.

The sum of COE, GOS and GMI is called total factor income; it is the income of all of the factors of production in society. It measures the value of GDP at factor (basic) prices. The difference between basic prices and final prices (those used in the expenditure calculation) is the total taxes and subsidies that the government has levied or paid on that production. So adding taxes less subsidies on production and imports converts GDP at factor cost to GDP(I). Total factor income is also sometimes expressed as:
Total factor income = Employee compensation + Corporate profits + Proprieter's income + Rental income + Net interest[6]

Yet another formula for GDP by the income method is:[citation needed]

GDP = R + I + P + SA + W
where R : rents I : interests P : profits SA : statistical adjustments (corporate income taxes, dividends, undistributed corporate profits) W : wages Note the mnemonic, "ripsaw". A "production boundary" that delimits what will be counted as GDP.
"One of the fundamental questions that must be addressed in preparing the national economic accounts is how to define the production boundary that is, what parts of the myriad human activities are to be included in or excluded from the measure of the economic production." [7]

All output for market is at least in theory included within the boundary. Market output is defined as that which is sold for "economically significant" prices; economically significant prices are "prices which have a significant influence on the amounts producers are willing to supply and purchasers wish to buy."[8] An exception is that illegal goods and services are often excluded even if they are sold at economically significant prices (Australia and the United States exclude them). This leaves non-market output. It is partly excluded and partly included. First, "natural processes without human involvement or direction" are excluded.[9] Also, there must be a person or

institution that owns or is entitled to compensation for the product. An example of what is included and excluded by these criteria is given by the United States' national accounts agency: "the growth of trees in an uncultivated forest is not included in production, but the harvesting of the trees from that forest is included."[10] Within the limits so far described, the boundary is further constricted by "functional considerations."[11] The Australian Bureau for Statistics explains this: "The national accounts are primarily constructed to assist governments and others to make market-based macroeconomic policy decisions, including analysis of markets and factors affecting market performance, such as inflation and unemployment." Consequently, production that is, according to them, "relatively independent and isolated from markets," or "difficult to value in an economically meaningful way" [i.e., difficult to put a price on] is excluded.[12] Thus excluded are services provided by people to members of their own families free of charge, such as child rearing, meal preparation, cleaning, transportation, entertainment of family members, emotional support, care of the elderly.[13] Most other production for own (or one's family's) use is also excluded, with two notable exceptions which are given in the list later in this section. Nonmarket outputs that are included within the boundary are listed below. Since, by definition, they do not have a market price, the compilers of GDP must impute a value to them, usually either the cost of the goods and services used to produce them, or the value of a similar item that is sold on the market.

Goods and services provided by governments and non-profit organisations free of charge or for economically insignificant prices are included. The value of these goods and services is estimated as equal to their cost of production. This ignores the consumer surplus generated by an efficient and effective government supplied infrastructure. For example, governmentprovided clean water confers substantial benefits above its cost. Ironically, lack of such infrastructure which would result in higher water prices (and probably higher hospital and medication expenditures) would be reflected as a higher GDP. This may also cause a bias that mistakenly favors inefficient privatizations since some of the consumer surplus from privatized entities' sale of goods and services are indeed reflected in GDP.[14] Goods and services produced for own-use by businesses are attempted to be included. An example of this kind of production would be a machine constructed by an engineering firm for use in its own plant. Renovations and upkeep by an individual to a home that she owns and occupies are included. The value of the upkeep is estimated as the rent that she could charge for the home if she did not occupy it herself. This is the largest item of production for own use by an individual (as opposed to a business) that the compilers include in GDP.[15] If the measure uses historical or book prices for real estate, this will grossly underestimate the value of the rent in real estate markets which have experienced significant price increases (or economies with general inflation). Furthermore, depreciation schedules for houses often accelerate the accounted depreciation relative to actual depreciation (a well built house can be lived in for several hundred years - a very long time after it has been fully depreciated). In summary, this is likely to grossly underestimate the value of existing housing stock on consumers' actual consumption or income. Agricultural production for consumption by oneself or one's household is included.

Services (such as chequeing-account maintenance and services to borrowers) provided by banks and other financial institutions without charge or for a fee that does not reflect their full value have a value imputed to them by the compilers and are included. The financial institutions provide these services by giving the customer a less advantageous interest rate than they would if the services were absent; the value imputed to these services by the compilers is the difference between the interest rate of the account with the services and the interest rate of a similar account that does not have the services. According to the United States Bureau for Economic Analysis, this is one of the largest imputed items in the GDP.[16]

Gross nationalproduct

Gross National Product (GNP) is the market value of all goods and services produced in one year by labour and property supplied by the residents of a country.[1] It is supposed to reflect the average income of a nation's citizens[2] GNP does not distinguish between qualitative improvements in the state of the technical arts (e.g. increasing computer processing speeds), and quantitative increases in goods (e.g. number of computers produced), and considers both to be forms of "economic growth

GDP vs GNP
GDP can be contrasted with gross national product (GNP) or gross national income(GNI). The difference is that GDP defines its scope according to location, while GNP defines its scope according to ownership. GDP is product produced within a country's borders; GNP is product produced by enterprises owned by a country's citizens. The two would be the same if all of the productive enterprises in a country were owned by its own citizens, but foreign ownership makes GDP and GNP non-identical. Production within a country's borders, but by an enterprise owned by somebody outside the country, counts as part of its GDP but not its GNP; on the other hand, production by an enterprise located outside the country, but owned by one of its citizens, counts as part of its GNP but not its GDP
Foreign Direct Investment Foreign direct investment (FDI) refers to long term participation by country A into country B. It usually involves participation in management, joint-venture, transfer of technology and expertise. There are three types of FDI: inward foreign direct investment and outward foreign direct investment, resulting in a net FDI inflow (positive or negative) and "stock of foreign direct investment", which is the cumulative number for a given period. Direct investment excludes investment through purchase of shares