How can you deepen your understanding of Economics?

One could read the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, etc., but there are other ways like simple observation. If gas prices are high, consumers are going to spend less on other goods. If inflation is on the rise, the population is going to be less happy and the misery index will start to rise. If people are waiting in line for a certain toy at Christmas, the stock of that company is probably going to do well. Popcorn is always going to cost more at the movie theater because they have a monopoly on your food options. The list goes on. If you want to read, don't start with a textbook. Read Peter Lynch's Learn to Earn and Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephan Dubner and you will be way ahead of the pack. And you will understand it.

I'm not really sure that "read widely" is helpful advice. There is just so much out there and the quality varies dramatically. For me it feels validating sources is a job on its own, and I'm both formally trained, published and read economics for fun for ages. I would rather suggest starting with good elaborations on basics: interplay of supply and demand, time value of money, rate of return and how it influences decisions between agents, risk vs return, difference between entrepreneurial profit and loss vs employee wages.

If you find the classics too "dry" start with something more accessible, e. g. "Freakonomics" by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. If you are unsure where to start, look up the laureates of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences and their wikipedia-profiles. They often provide a good summary of vital economic concepts.

For an even easier and fun introduction to economics: a whole bunch of board games utilize economic concepts for game design and some of them even have the game idea about specific key economic areas. For example, Power Grid is a game where you bid, network, and manage resources in a race to supply the most cities with power.

I say economics is like yoga for your brain - it stretches in ways you didn't think possible. My trick? Mix those theories with real-life business scenarios. It's one thing to read about supply and demand, quite another to see it play out during a product launch or market shift. Keeps things interesting, trust me!

Another way to deepen your understanding of economics is analyze case studies: Study real-world economic events and analyze their causes, impacts, and potential solutions. This will enhance your critical thinking skills and help you apply economic theories to practical situations.

Another interesting way of practicing problems is to participate in Game Theoretic simulations. Those are often provided at university labs and some can be joined online.

Relevant to the point of practicing problems, but dependent on your professional situation is the ability to analyse how economic theories apply in your organisation. Do you work in the finance department where you are involved in the decision-making process for a future investment project? What variables drive that decision? What macroeconomic inputs are part of your consideration? What is the competition in your industry currently doing and why? Or maybe you have access to your organisation's costing information? What costs are variable and what are fixed? How is pricing determined for your products and services? Your everyday job is an amazing source of knowledge lying in your hands.

Economics is an everyday things that cannot be hidden or covered, it is an everyday day subject. As much reading text books to get grip on the principles and fundamentals there’s no replacement on what happens on ground. Inflation is a killer and Whittles ways the real value of money. An import dependent economy is certainly going to suffer imported inflation, Local currency depreciation foreign reserve depletion. There is no gain with Unemployment as it increases social vices and everyone loses.Printing of money not backed by production will lead to inflation and associated price hike and cost of leaving.Excessive borrowing without putting it productive and beyond our internal revenue generation with lead to a worsening Debt ratio.

I think the best suite of online economics resources are at Marginal Revolution University. Their series of interactive practices are excellent ways to test your knowledge of key concepts.

Not just economics, but anything that one wants to master, group discussions are a great way to exchange learnings, ideas, and personal opinions about a topic. on the other hand group discussions improve communication skills also.

As convenient as online discussions can be, it’s rewarding to take part in in-person discussions too. If you are based in the UK/London like myself, I would recommend attending public lectures and talks, just to name a few, held by the Royal Economic Society, Intelligence Squared, and those held by universities such as LSE, UCL, and KCL (if made available for the wider public). In doing so, you have networking opportunities too being surrounded by like minded individuals.

"Spiritual solutions to economic problems".. HOW concretely? I have discovered that every human activity has a financial counterparty which is quantifiable (while describing national economy, including macro and sector activities). Which means every human activity can be schematicaly modelized with algorithms. The algorithms are based on relational databases coupled with a digital currency (Money flows like blood in the human body). Programing is done by using incentives such as subsidies (+) or taxation (-) like 0 and 1 in computing. The word "economic program" takes a whole new meaning in that context.

I previously explained a new system that COULD (if confirmed by an authoritative body) replace all economic systems or theories known to mankind to-date. One thing I forgot to dwell on and which is at the core of it is allocation of resources (thru money). That is what any economic system is supposed to do. In that system allocation is made via gates for the electronic money to flow thru like electricity via mosfet chip gates (commonly called transistors) to use an analogy with computing, which are either in open (0) or closed positions (1) in my previous example/post. This programing should be made ideally by representatives of the people at the local, state, national and international levels, democratically and in a decentraluzed fashion.

I actually love going through the debates on #EconTwitter, the limited amount of characters (back then at least) force economists and other practitioners to be sweet and to the point - even when the threads become long.

Economics and data are deeply intertwined; in fact, most economic analysis involves rigorous quantitive analysis of multiple datasets. These data-driven insights not only enable increased objectivity in policymaking, but also ensure that governance decisions are grounded on real-world evidence and facts. For example, a comprehensive analysis of socioeconomic data can enable decision-makers to understand hidden trends in health, housing, demography, employment and income.

In understanding complexities of Economics, its vital to explore numerical data to do analysis on the feasibility of understanding Economics when comes to individuals, households or businesses making choices upon the availability of data presentations. Data provide information in helping people making good decisions given the world scarcity of resources.

You might want to have a look at R at this stage because it is a free and widely used tool. It is less accessible than Stata or MatLab i.m.o. but has the benefit of also being used in machine learning.

Exploring the data is particularly important in deepening your understanding of economics. Being able to ask practical and real world questions based on the variables in the dataset enhance the thought process of translating economic theories into applied economics. For instance, looking at a data on the utilization of solar energy by households can help understand dynamics shifts in energy supply and demand and potential policy implications.

Data visualisations are a great way to communicate economic ideas and are often much more intuitive than more complex statistical analysis. When you notice an interesting chart take the time to really understand it!

Economics is a great tool to help learn more about the world around us, and challenge existing beliefs. The best way to ensure this happens is to consider both sides of any topical issue and strive to represent them in a way that would be accepted by advocates. If you can't provide a list of good reasons for something you disagree with, it means you don't really understand it!

As an applied behavioral economist, I am all about understanding bias in decision making (both in those making the choice and those setting up the choice) as well as the psychology behind buying decisions. We are all biased. That will not change. The human brain effectively runs on bias. Understanding those rules can help you make better decisions, create better products/services, have stronger communication, and even learn faster/implement what you learn better than before. In this way, I highly recommend including behavioral economics in your work. (I may be biased --see what I did there? ?? -- but I think The Brainy Business podcast is a great place to start for this) behavioraleconomics.com is also a great resource.

"Economics is omnipresent and improves decision-making," Tyler Cowen notes. 1. Read Widely: Smith, Keynes, and Friedman. Progress to gain diverse perspectives. 2. Follow Experts:Read articles by Krugman, Roubini, and Piketty for broader insights. 3. Online Learning:Take courses on platforms like Coursera and Khan Academy for structured learning. 4. Engage in Discourse:Participate in economics forums for diverse viewpoints. 5. Examine Real-world Scenarios:Analyze economic events and policies for practical implications. 6. Visual Learning: infographics, videos, and podcasts 7. Specialize:Explore topics like behavioral economics, international trade, and development economics. 8. Data Skills:Learn basic data analysis for empirical support.

Over the years I learned my students were more receptive to examining their own views if they were presented with information on both sides of controversial issues. I tried to help them see controversial issues are usually controversial for a reason (or reasons). It is important to allow both sides a chance to present their case and then critically examine whatever evidence they present. Attempting to censor or silence opposing viewpoints by labeling them "misinformation" will not change minds and hearts; it will only cause more division and polarization.

Dentro de nuestra reflexión crítica , no debemos olvidar que la economía es una ciencia social y no una ciencia exacta. Muchas veces los modelos nos abstraen de ello por lo que la aplicación práctica debe estudiarse minuciosamente antes de efectivizarse ya que puede generar mayores problemas que los que intenta resolver.

Another way to broaden and deepen your understanding of economics is to talk to practitioners in different fields of economics, ranging from the federal reserve, academia and tech. You can search for economists through linkedin and ask for a chat.

If you don’t understand economics then you cannot fully understand the world…but of course I would say that as an economist! I suggest young people start with economic history because it’s tangible (and was forgotten in recent decades by neo-classical econs), Ha-Joon Chang’s “kicking away the ladder” is fantastic. Then read anything by Marianna Mazzucato who writes about using the econ toolkit to fix real world problems. She is a rockstar. If you can bare an econ 101 class do it—understanding current orthodoxy allows you to challenge it!

Behavioral Economics is fascinating. It acknowledges that the human being is biased (of course there is wide range for the bias level), by doing so the economic analysis changes. For example classic economic theory asumes that human decisions are rational, clearly not the case when you buy a new car instead of saving for retirement. Behavioral Economics is made of Economics, psycology and sociology

Attend lectures - you may find some boring or confusing but personally, I found the Q & A sessions very enlightening as many experts provide real world examples/solutions in those.

Also, be like an ethnographer, study from the perspective of somebody who is doing economics. But also realize that economics is part of a much wider ecosystem. We would love to think that ecosystems are reliant on themselves. But ecosystems are always part of much wider ecosystems. So, when researching, take everything that you’ve read, whether it be data or research, or first-hand experience, with a panoramic view of how each relate to something else. The economy represents what we value. To learn about the economy is to understand that this is its ground for foundation upon which creates relationships between objects and people.