Understand economic language. A crucial first step to understanding economics is knowing pertinent terms. Failure to adequately comprehend a term's meaning greatly hinders any student of economics. Common terms include inflation, the Consumer Price Index, and monetary policy. For macroeconomics, a person needs to understand the concepts of labor and capital.
Familiarize yourself with the difference between macroeconomics and microeconomics. Microeconomics investigates human behavior on the economic level. Microeconomics trains specialists to understand how a corporation, firm, or government may work in a changing global economy. Macroeconomics tends to view the mechanisms of the global economy and measures how nation-states develop and output goods and services into the global economy.
Learn the central measurements in macroeconomics. The main measurement macroeconomists use is Gross Domestic Product. Gross Domestic Product is the outcome of all economic output a nation produces. Mathematically, a country's GDP is the country's exports, minus imports, and then added to the country's government spending, private consumption and spending, and national investments. Another major measurement a macroeconomist must study is growth. Growth is defined by the output of a country's economy plus the living standards of the general population.
Learn about international trade. International trade is one of the cornerstones of macroeconomics. Since macroeconomics deals with the general trends of economies, understanding how the international trading system works is a crucial point in macroeconomics. Currently, the dominant international economy is expressed through free trade, or low trade barriers. This phenomenon is facilitated by nation-states' willingness to employ this system and the powers of international organizations such as the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. Macroeconomists study how governments interact with each other to facilitate open markets for trading.
Learn about government policy. Macroeconomics deals with government regulations' and policies' impact on national and international economies. A central issue for a macroeconomist is understanding how states manage economic issues, like employment and standard of living, while advocating for free trade and low trade barriers.