Macroeconomics - macroeconomics

A field of study that clarifies the movements of economic agents such as governments, companies, and households from a macroscopic perspective such as a country or a specific economic zone, and considers solutions to reduce poverty and unemployment and help people live prosperous lives. It employs a method of setting optimal economic models for variables such as gross domestic product (GDP), income, investment, savings, consumption, money supply, interest rates, prices, unemployment rates, exchange rates, and the balance of payments, and then analyzing and verifying them. It is a major pillar of economics, alongside microeconomics, which analyzes the microscopic movements of individual people and companies.

Classical economics believed in Say's Law, which states that supply creates its own demand, the market is in equilibrium, and full employment is achieved. However, after the Great Depression, British economist J.M. Keynes published The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money in 1936. He argued that leaving it to the market alone would result in unemployment, and that effective demand needed to be created through appropriate government intervention in the market (fiscal spending and tax cuts). After this Keynesian Revolution, Keynesian economics became the mainstream of macroeconomics until the 1970s, and had a major impact on the economic and fiscal policies of various countries.

However, after the oil crisis, aggregate demand management policies based on Keynesian economics were called into question. In the 1970s, American economist R.E. Lucas presented the rational expectations hypothesis, which states that discretionary fiscal and monetary policies are ineffective because they are offset by the rational expectations of households and companies. With the addition of the research of American economist E.C. Prescott and others, "Rules Rather than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," new classical economics became the mainstream of macroeconomics. After that, new Keynesian economics, which emphasizes the factors that cause market failure (information asymmetry, wage and price rigidity, etc.) and attempts to reconstruct macroeconomic policies to correct these, came to prominence, and has had a major impact on the Obama administration and others in the United States.

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Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

国や特定経済圏といった巨視的（マクロ）視点から、政府、企業、家計という経済主体の動きを明らかにし、貧困や失業を減らし、人々が豊かに暮らしていくための解決策を考察する学問。国内総生産（GDP）、所得、投資、貯蓄、消費、通貨供給量、利子率、物価、失業率、為替(かわせ)相場、国際収支などを変数にとって最適な経済モデルを設定し、分析・実証する手法をとる。経済学で、個々の人々や個別企業の微視的（ミクロ）動きから分析するミクロ経済学と並ぶ大きな柱となっている。

　古典派経済学では、供給が自ら需要を生み出して市場は均衡し、完全雇用が実現されるというセーの法則が信じられていた。しかし世界恐慌後、イギリスの経済学者、J・M・ケインズは1936年に『雇用・利子および貨幣の一般理論』を発表。市場に任せただけでは失業が発生し、政府による適切な市場介入（財政支出と減税）で有効需要を創出する必要があると訴えた。このケインズ革命以降、1970年代までケインズ経済学がマクロ経済学の主流をなし、各国の経済・財政政策に大きな影響を与えた。

　だが石油危機を経て、ケインズ経済学に基づく総需要管理政策に疑問が呈される。1970年代にアメリカ人経済学者R・E・ルーカスは裁量的な財政・金融政策は家計や企業の合理的予想（期待）で相殺されて無効となるという合理的期待形成仮説を発表。アメリカ人経済学者のE・C・プレスコットらの研究「Rules Rather than Discretion：The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans」（裁量よりもルール――最適計画の非適合性）も加わり、新しい古典派New classical economicsがマクロ経済学の主流となった。その後、市場の失敗が起こる要因（情報の非対称性、賃金や物価の硬直性など）を重視し、これを是正するマクロ政策を再構築しようとするニュー・ケインジアン経済学new Keynesian ecomonicsが台頭、アメリカのオバマ政権などに大きな影響を及ぼしている。

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