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The School Economist How to Choose Your Niche When Deciding to Pursue Economics for Further Studies When you're just beginning your studies in economics, you'll quickly come across two very important branches – microeconomics and macroeconomics. It's highly likely that you'll study both at some point during your degree, as they are two of the foundational planks of the subject. It is also likely, however, that you will have to choose which to take first, prompting the question: which is the best theoretical starting point for your studies? Having just started out this can be a tough question to answer. That's why we're going to give you a little run down of each, to help you make the most informed decision possible.
What's the Difference Between Macroeconomics and Microeconomics? Before making any decisions about which classes to take, you need to understand what each subject refers to. Microeconomics is the study of economic systems on a small scale – meaning it is about the way in which economic theories play out when they are applied to an individual, a group, or a company. Macroeconomics, on the other hand, looks at the entire economy of countries or of the world. For example, microeconomics in practice would include the study of supply and demand for a particular product or service, or examination of how a particular piece of legislation would effect a business which operated in that area. Macroeconomics, on the other hand, examines economics on the larger scale, seeing how economic theories apply to governments and international organisations such as NATO. Examples of the kind of topics studied in macroeconomics would include the gross domestic product of a country, or the economics of imports to and exports from a country.
