Intermediate Macroeconomics Self Evaluation: Fill & Download for Free

My advice is: focus on hard skills like programming, evaluation, etc. (depending on the field you would like to get into). These hard skills can be learned or perfected through experience.So, work experience over learning a language.Why?To answer that, I need to tell you about my background.I'm a Chinese-Brazilian. After I finished high school in Brazil, I came to China to study Chinese and pursue my bachelor. Through my time here I met a lot of international people which made me interested in pick up more languages. I speak in total of 6 languages: Portguese, Chinese, English, Spanish, Korean and Persian (from Fluent to Intermediate level).Since I'm about to graduate I have been applying for major financial companies, even though I like engineering, this is not the field I would like to work in, I feel I'm more a business person, which took me a few years to figure it out.Anyway, when I get to interviews it's really hard for me to answer questions like: how to do an evaluation, how microeconomic and macroeconomic works, etc.Of course I do some self study to get some basic concepts and prepare for interviews but it's not enough. This is why now, I wish I have focused more on learning hardskills than language.Unless the job requires a certain language that is not your native language, then obviously you should study it.Singapore is very international, everyone speaks English, but Mandarin will definelty help you there.Good luck!

Yes there is. Anti-capital: the means of destruction, is the antithesis of capital: the means of production. Both capital and anti-capital are Real Business Cycle determinants with capital accounting for causes of positive technology shocks and anti-capital accounting for causes of negative technology shocks. Capital can be placed into two categories: anthropogenic capital and natural capital. Anthropogenic capital accounts for anthropogenic causes of positive technology shocks whereas natural capital accounts for non-anthropogenic i.e., natural causes, of positive technology shocks. Similarly, anti-capital can be placed into two categories: anthropogenic anti-capital and natural anti-capital. Anthropogenic anti-capital accounts for anthropogenic causes of negative technology shocks whereas natural anti-capital accounts for non-anthropogenic i.e. natural causes, of negative technology shocks.TECHNOLOGY SHOCKS AND PARTIAL EQUILIBRIUMPartial equilibrium analysis is the analysis of the single market i.e., the market for a specific good or service, in isolation from other markets within the macro-economy. In the domain of partial equilibrium analysis, a negative technology shock is a reduction in supply in the market for a specific good or service. For example, when a negative technology shock is imposed on the market for fish, a reduction in supply occurs in the market for fish meaning that the marginal cost of the nth ton of fish produced within a given time frame increases for all values of n. Assuming an inverse demand function for fish, this produces a shift in the market for fish to a new equilibrium at a higher price level and lower quantity supplied.Conversely, in the domain of partial equilibrium analysis, a positive technology shock is an increase in supply in the market for a specific good or service. For example, when a positive technology shock is imposed on the market for cars, an increase in supply occurs in the market for cars meaning that the marginal cost of the nth car produced within a given time frame falls for all values of n. Assuming an inverse demand function for cars, this produces a shift in the market for cars to a new equilibrium at a lower price level and higher quantity supplied.TECHNOLOGY SHOCKS AND GENERAL EQUILIBRIUMGeneral equilibrium analysis is the analysis of interdependent markets within the macro-economy. In the domain of general equilibrium analysis, a negative technology shock will include: a reduction in supply in the market for an intermediate good A; a reduction in supply in the market for any intermediate or final good B which is a product of A - that is, where A is an input employed in the production of B; a reduction in demand in the market for any intermediate or final good C which is a complement for A or B; and an increase in demand in the market for any intermediate or final good D which is a substitute for A or B.For example, when a negative technology shock is imposed on the market for crude oil, which is employed in the production of mogas, the markets for crude and mogas exhibit reductions in supply, holding all other determinants of supply in the markets for crude and mogas constant. With inverse demand functions assumed in the markets for crude and mogas, the negative technology shock imposed on the market for crude causes shifts to new equilibria at higher price levels and lower quantities supplied in the markets for crude and mogas.Furthermore, where the goods tetraethyl lead and motor oil are complements for the goods crude oil and mogas respectively, the negative technology shock imposed on the market for crude causes reductions in demand in the markets for tetraethyl lead and motor oil, holding all other determinants of demand for tetraethyl lead and motor oil constant. With decreasing returns to scale i.e., positively sloped supply functions assumed in the markets for tetraethyl lead and motor oil, the negative technology shock imposed on the market for crude causes shifts to new equilibria at lower price levels and lower quantities supplied in the markets for tetraethyl lead and motor oil.Additionally, where the goods biomass and bioethanol are substitutes for the goods crude oil and mogas respectively, the negative technology shock imposed on the market for crude causes increases in demand in the markets for biomass and bioethanol, holding all other determinants of demand for biomass and bioethanol constant. With decreasing returns to scale assumed in the markets for biomass and bioethanol, the negative technology shock imposed on the market for crude causes shifts to new equilibria at higher price levels and higher quantities supplied in the markets for biomass and bioethanol.Conversely, in the domain of general equilibrium analysis, a positive technology shock will include: an increase in supply in the market for an intermediate good A; an increase in supply in the market for any intermediate or final good B which is a product of A - that is, where A is an input employed in the production of B; an increase in demand in the market for any intermediate or final good C which is a complement for A or B; and a reduction in demand in the market for any intermediate or final good D which is a substitute for A or B.For example, when a positive technology shock is imposed on the market for crude oil, which is employed in the production of mogas, the markets for crude and mogas exhibit increases in supply, holding all other determinants of supply in the markets for crude and mogas constant. With inverse demand functions assumed in the markets for crude and mogas, the positive technology shock imposed on the market for crude causes shifts to new equilibria at lower price levels and higher quantities supplied in the markets for crude and mogas.Furthermore, where the goods tetraethyl lead and motor oil are complements for the goods crude oil and mogas respectively, the positive technology shock imposed on the market for crude causes increases in demand in the markets for tetraethyl lead and motor oil, holding all other determinants of demand for tetraethyl lead and motor oil constant. With decreasing returns to scale assumed in the markets for tetraethyl lead and motor oil, the positive technology shock imposed on the market for crude causes shifts to new equilibria at higher price levels and higher quantities supplied in the markets for tetraethyl lead and motor oil.Additionally, where the goods biomass and bioethanol are substitutes for the goods crude oil and mogas respectively, the positive technology shock imposed on the market for crude causes reductions in demand in the markets for biomass and bioethanol, holding all other determinants of demand for biomass and bioethanol constant. With decreasing returns to scale assumed in the markets for biomass and bioethanol, the positive technology shock imposed on the market for crude causes shifts to new equilibria at lower price levels and lower quantities supplied in the markets for biomass and bioethanol.THE CAUSES OF TECHNOLOGY SHOCKS: CAPITAL AND ANTI-CAPITALHaving defined anthropogenic capital as anthropogenic causes of positive technology shocks, it is acceptable to define anthropogenic capital as human behaviours, both remunerated and non-remunerated, that produce positive technology shocks. Similarly, having defined anthropogenic anti-capital as anthropogenic causes of negative technology shocks, it is acceptable to define anthropogenic anti-capital as human behaviours, both remunerated and non-remunerated, that produce negative technology shocks.Since wage labour accounts for all remunerated behaviours, wage labour is composed of both anthropogenic capital and anthropogenic anti-capital.IMPLICATIONS FOR MACROECONOMIC POLICY CONDUCTIf it is accepted that a fiscal or monetary stimulus program will increase the quantity of wage labour supplied in an economy over the short run, then it becomes apparent that a fiscal or monetary stimulus program will increase the quantities of anthropogenic capital and anthropogenic anti-capital employed in that economy over the short run. Since anthropogenic capital accounts for labour employed in the production of positive technology shocks and anthropogenic anti-capital accounts for labour employed in the production of negative technology shocks, it is instructive that the stimulus will stimulate the production of both positive and negative technology shocks.It is also worth noting that the technology shocks produced by the stimulus only manifest over the long run owing to the cause and effect relationship that exists between the stimulus and the technology shocks . For example, suppose that a stimulus finances the construction of a defective off-shore oil rig which collapses at some duration (5 years, 10 years etc) after its completion producing negative technology shocks in markets for locally produced fish. Or suppose that a stimulus finances university research in mechanical engineering producing positive technology shocks in markets for locally produced cars manifesting at some duration (2 years, 10 years etc) after the implementation of the stimulus.When a fiscal or monetary stimulus imposes negative technology shocks on markets for 'n' goods, directly or via general equilibrium mechanisms, a reduction in long run aggregate supply occurs within the macro-economy, holding all other determinants of long run aggregate supply constant. The implication of a reduction in aggregate supply in a macro-economy with an inverse aggregate demand function, is an increase in the price level, and a reduction in output, likely accompanied by an increase in the unemployment rate. This ignores any effect of the negative technology shock on the position of the aggregate demand function.Conversely, when a fiscal or monetary stimulus imposes positive technology shocks on markets for 'n' goods, directly or via general equilibrium mechanisms, an increase in long run aggregate supply occurs within the macro-economy, holding all other determinants of long run aggregate supply constant. The implication of an increase in aggregate supply for a macro-economy with an inverse aggregate demand function, is a fall in the price level, and a rise in output, likely accompanied by a reduction in the unemployment rate. Once again, this ignores any effect of the positive technology shock on the position of the aggregate demand function.In sum, were a fiscal or monetary stimulus to produce negative technology shocks of significantly greater scale than positive technology shocks across the macro-economy, a net reduction in long run aggregate supply would ensue, likely placing upward pressure on inflation and the rate of unemployment; a phenomenon referred to as stagflation.CAPITAL, ANTI-CAPITAL AND THE QUALITATIVE REVOLUTION IN MACROECONOMICSAs positive technology shocks and negative technology shocks can be products of labour, the onus is on economics to segregate labour into appropriate sub-categories viz., anthropogenic capital as labour employed in the production of positive technology shocks, and anthropogenic anti-capital as labour employed in the production of negative technology shocks. By further developing this reasoning it will become possible to evaluate the effectiveness of a proposed fiscal or monetary stimulus; that is, to determine the quantities of anthropogenic capital and anthropogenic anti-capital employed by the stimulus, the positive technology shock produced by the anthropogenic capital component of the stimulus, the negative technology shock produced by the anthropogenic anti-capital component of the stimulus, and the net technology shock, negative or positive, produced by the stimulus including its effects on output, inflation and unemployment.

The idea that any market economy is well organised is probably wrong.We are in the midst of the Grand Crisis (this is a term in parallel with the Great Depression in the 1930s). In Chinese, crisis 危机 (wei- ji) means danger (wei) and opportunity ( ji). This is the main idea of order out of chaos introduced by the late Belgian physicist Ilya Prigogine (Prigogine and Stengers 1984). In economic literature, instability is mainly used as a negative term. But the physics concepts of nonequilibrium, complexity, and chaos imply not only the destruction of an old order, but also the emergence of a new structure. From this perspective, the current Grand Crisis may bring about a new world of economic order and a new era of economic thinking.“The whole intellectual edifice collapsed in the summer of last year,” the perplexed former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan confessed in congressional testimony on October 23, 2008 (Greenspan 2008)There are several theories on economics and market equilibrium with its recessions and booms.The first is the equilibrium economics or neo- classical school. Its core belief is the so- called efficient market hypothesis with rational expectations, which is self- stabilizing without need of government intervention. Any disturbance in the market is external and temporary in nature. Brownian motion or random shocks are their mathematic formulation of laissez- faire policy. There is a long cast of prominent names associated with this school: Ragnar Frisch, Milton Friedman, Eugene Fama, Robert Lucas,The second is the disequilibrium economics or Keynesian school. Its central theme is a fragile market, which frequently collapses under irrational panic or historical events. Known scholars in this camp include John Maynard Keynes, Hyman Minsky, Benoît Mandelbrot and behavioral economists. Their main effort is introducing social psychology into economic behavior (Akerlof and Shiller 2009). However, they have not yet developed a consistent theoretical framework. Monetary and fiscal policies are the main tools for restoring market confidence from time to time. Their weakness is a lack of structural analysis and historical perspective.The third school is the self- organization economics or evolutionary school. Its perception of market economy and division of labour can be characterized as a viable market. Schumpeter’s ideas of creative destruction, economic organism, and biological clock, and Hayek’s concept of spontaneous order, are remarkably similar to Ilya Prigogine’s idea of self- organization and dissipative structure in complexity science. Their characteristic is a biological view in an historical perspective for understanding human society. The term “viable market” was inspired by the observation of a firm’s “viability” by Justin Lin, formerly the Chief Economist at the World Bank (Lin 2009)The movements of stock market and macro indexes can be better understood by a mix of nonlinear trend, persistent cycles, plus minor noise. The market trend is mainly driven by technological wavelets and changing economic structure. Persistent cycles in the US economy are endogenous and nonlinear in nature, which fall within the stable range of NBER (National Bureau of Economic Research) business cycles from two to ten years. The sources of business cycles are not micro-foundations (behavioural characteristics of individual agents, such as households or businesses), on which an economic theory is based, but meso- foundation (we conceive of an economic system as a structural set of meso units, where each meso consists of a rule and its population of actualizations in operating procedures and policies), in financial intermediate and industrial organization. Financial market is inherently unstable because of collective behavior, financial leveraging, nonlinear pricing, and power concentration.For a viable market with resilient frequency but erratic fluctuations, the government’s role in managing and regulating economy should be more like a family doctor treating his patients rather than a school teacher dealing with pupils. He should care more about the system’s health and structural malfunction than day to day instructions to pupils.An economy is more like a living system. Its vitality is characterized by life rhythms. Like biology and physiology, structure matters immensely in understanding economic dynamics as a whole system. Adam Smith realized that division of labour is limited by market extent. Thomas Malthus pointed out the biological constraints to human activity. Market- share competition is more fundamental than price competition, which serves a business strategy in market- share competition. Competition policy and structural reform are more essential than fiscal and monetary policy for developing a sustainable economy. This is probably where the Washington Macroeconomic Consensus failed to acknowledge.Conventional micro–macro analysis ignores the middle layer of meso economics, i.e. financial intermediate and industrial organization, which are the foundations of creative destruction and business cycles. The irrational fads and panics in behavioral finance can be understood by interactions among individual actors.Mathematic models with a “highly questionable belief in universal rationality and the efficient market” led economic students to be detached from the real world. In the US, Simon Johnson, the former chief economist at IMF and MIT professor, argues that the root of the financial crisis had to be that the US government was captured by financial oligarchs, and that breaking financial oligarchs apart is the only way out of the recession of 2009, and possibly in the current crisis; but Congress is controlled by Big Biz, so what is the chance of that.Robert Lucas has been the leader of the so- called counter Keynesian revolution under the banner of rational expectations and micro-foundations since the 1970s. According to his simplistic but elegant theory, unemployment is the worker’s rational choice between work and leisure even during the Great Depression. The source of business cycles is therefore uncorrelated to external shocks in nature. There is little room for government intervention, since the market system is inherently stable and rational expectations will defeat government interference. Lucas made his name mainly by modeling technique in macro stochastic dynamics, whose main merit is mathematical simplicity and theoretical convenience, but not economic reality. In the policy arena, Lucas effectively turned the linear technique into a rational belief, which was the very foundation of “mistaking beauty for truth” described by (Krugman 2009)The Lucas theory of microfoundations had weak evidence under the Principle of Large Numbers (Chen Ping 2002). The 2008 financial crisis gave a historic blow to his microfoundations theory, since the financial crisis was rooted not from microfoundations at a household level, but meso foundation, i.e., the financial intermediate itself.There is little motivation of voluntary unemployment during the depression, since few American households have enough savings to cushion the lost income in an uncertain period. The Great Depression and the current crisis show clearly that the financial market is inherently unstable, as many economists realized a long time ago, including Schumpeter, Hayek, Keynes, Minsky, and behavioral economists, but marginalized by the so- called new classical macroeconomics led by Lucas.The fundamental assumption behind EMH (Efficient Market Hypothesis) is that the financial market is ruled by random walks or Brownian motion (Fama 1970, 1991), which is also the very foundation of portfolio diversification strategy and theory of option pricing. The godlike claim of “prices reflecting all available information”is only a simple mathematical assumption of an erroneous term with zero mean in stochastic modeling. If this theory is true, then it is very unlikely that large correlated price movements occur, like the boom–bust cycle or a financial crisis. Eugene Fama, the founder of EMH, himself realized the limit of regression analysis in econometric tests. EMH is not capable of proof evaluation or rejecting any nonlinear models of business cycles.New tools in complexity science reveal better alternatives to the Brownian motion model behind EMH. Chen Ping and colleagues described solid evidence of persistent cycles dominating the financial market, which is endogenous and chaotic in nature (Chen 1996a). The sub- prime crisis was started by underestimating risk by rating agencies and excess risk- taking by over-paid executives in the financial market. Housing bubbles emerged when investors failed to realize the changing price trend under the Fed’s monetary policy, a typical failure of rational expectations. Diversification strategy does not work when persistent cycles amplify irrational herd behavior or waves of optimism and pessimism. Financial engineering such as credit swaps would fail if the trading strategy follows a wrong theoretical model of geometric Brownian motion, which was explosive in nature.If the price- fall triggered by the Lehman failure was perceived as an accidental event as described by EMH and rational expectations, it would not change the market confidence and the stock prices should quickly return to normal by arbitrage activity. In fact, even Lucas acknowledged that the market response was “fear- driven” (a nonlinear social action within the market mechanism as Keynes pointed out before).When the Fed and Finance Ministry failed to intervene, waves of selling off led to market squeezing (a non-equilibrium phenomenon). The essence of EMH and rational expectations is the unique stable equilibrium for market movements. Arbitrage activity would quickly restore market equilibrium without the need for interference from the Fed and Finance Ministry. Lucas was just like Paulson and Bernanke during the ongoing crisis in that they did not fully know what they were doing and how the market would change.There is abundant evidence from numerous crises before that asset prices may not reflect all relevant information, or even worse, that asset prices may distort relevant information by greedy investment bankers (Fang 2004). Robert Shiller warned of the danger of inflated housing prices before the housing market melt-down (Shiller 2005). The difficulty in the short- term forecast of a financial crisis has nothing to do with market efficiency. The empirical evidence of nonlinearity and complexity widely exists in the financial market. Simple mechanisms, such as over- reaction and delayed feedback, would generate deterministic chaos, which imposes a limitation on trajectory forecast but increases volatility of price movements (Chen 1988a). Financial leverage plays a key role in generating boom–bust cycles (Semmler and Bernard 2009).Simon Johnson actually had a criticism of America’s oligarchs and their capture of the government’s rescue policy, amply demonstrated during the 2008 Crisis bail out and the current CARE’s Act. As an example, in the two months from mid-March to mid-May 2020 – so far the worst corona crisis months, when the world was basically shut down, when unemployment and accompanying misery and even famine soared to proportions never known in mankind’s history – the billionaires in the US have added another 434 billion dollars to their wealth! A complete contradiction in terms of re-distributive effects.There are reliable methods to identify and prevent asset bubbles in the market. For example, sudden changes of trading volumes in Wall Street signal speculative activities by big investors and herd behavior of ‘noise traders’. The regulating agency could easily take counter cyclic measures, such as increasing the capital reserve requirement, restricting leverage ceiling, increasing the transaction tax rate. Breaking market monopoly is the most effective way to prevent market manipulation. As Alfred Marshall said, economics should be closer to biology than mechanics (1920).Business cycles behave more like a freeway driver than a drunken man. From historical experiences, a protracted long period of expansion is an engine to feed bubbles, even if the inflation rate is low during the economic expansion before bursting the bubble like the situation before the Great Depression and the current crisis.In terms of a viable market, government policy is capable of managing the normal range of business cycles within four to five years if we shift policy goal from inflation level targeting to business cycle monitoring. Just like the heart beats in animals, too fast or too slow rhythms signal potential troubles in the biological organism. Maintaining a normal life rhythm can improve the immune system against external shocks. Therefore, structural adjustments with a policy mix of monetary and fiscal policy should be designed and formulated experiments under historical constraints and within a certain environment during the business cycle to help reform policies. The rational individual with unlimited want as compared to actual needs is not compatible with ecological constraints (such as global warming) and social solidarity. The human being anywhere is a social animal seeking security, happiness, and companionship. Division of labour is driven by a disciplined hand (both for individual and government) in the modern economy. That should be the goal of government policy.In answer to the second part of your question, it is true that government has to step in to resuscitate the economy and you can read the answer I gave to this question. Kokwai Thong's answer to Both the US and China governments try to stimulate their economies, how do they differ in strategy and effectiveness?References. Books byWhy Minsky Matters … L. Randall WrayGreat Economic Thinkers ... Jonathan ConlinEconomic Complexity and Equilibrium Illusion ... Ping ChenThanks for A2A.