<p>A couple of days ago I was surfin' the web in my pj's when I came across an [url=<a href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CollegeAdvice.html%5Darticle%5B/url">http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CollegeAdvice.html]article[/url</a>]. Now the article is about computer science, but the author makes an interesting comment about economics:
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After [microeconomics] things start to deteriorate: you get into Macroeconomics...with its interesting theories about things like the relationship of interest rates to unemployment which seem to be disproven more often than they are proven...
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<p>I don't know how much the author knows about economics, but he made me think. So, all you econ majors, how useful is macroeconomics to first the common man, second the business man, and third the economist? Should a non-econ major/minor even bother (unless interested)?</p>
<p>I'd like to know too, as I'm 99% sure I'm switchin my major to econ!</p>
<p>I'm a huge advocate of people taking courses outside of their discipline, and intro micro/macro are both very useful. Micro is a bit drier and can be less policy relevant if your prof doesn't use good examples. I had a great prof, so it was okay - as an example we did two whole chapters on canadian agricultural policy and how micro explains things like quotas/tarrifs, etc. As I'm a liberal arts student, I too often see Poli majors who are always making excuses as to why economics isn't relevant (when really they just hate math, which is bs because if you know high school algebra you can take intro econ courses and be fine... if you can read a graph, all is good). </p>
<p>To answer your questions...
1. The average person. If you have an interest in economics or in anything remotely related to policy, intro macro is valuable. I really think that all policy makers (elected or not) should be forced to take intro econ - it would make the world a much more logical place, if nothing else.
2. The businessman. If I'm correct, economics is usually a course required for business majors, and for good reason. Micro is probably more interesting in terms of accounting (cost curves and whatnot), but if you want to run a business, knowing how policy works is great, and macro can be very relevant.
3. The economist. I think this is kind of obvious - if you're an economist, you'll have taken both micro and macro economics. It does depend what kind of economist you are though. A university researcher will probably have several math-related degrees and may not even start econ related courses until their PhD - and the focus of much of this research is micro-related. On the other hand, if you want to be an economist for say, the World Bank, taking more advanced macro would be a fine idea. </p>
<p>Just fyi, my majors. I'm declared an International Relations major (just so I have a dose of liberal arts in there... I get to take poli sci, history, languages, econ, geography, area studies... <3), and I'm going to double in either Economics or Honours Economics. No idea what I'm going to do with my life... I love IR, and econ just seemed a natural fit for a double as it is both relevant and useful (and I've done well so far in my econ courses!). I just need some math prereqs first... should be okay because I was good at math in hs, but I haven't done it in ages! I wrote IB Math Methods SL in May '05 (got a 7!) and haven't looked back since... heh.</p>