Macroeconomic Statistics
The “Macroeconomic Statistics” course has been developed by the School of Statistics and Data Analysis to introduce the students who pursue the Bachelor degree in Economics to the statistical ideas and methods relevant to macroeconomic data gathering and statistical inquiries into economic performance of nations.
The course has been developed in compliance with the HSE educational standard of training bachelors in the field 38.03.01 “Economics” endorsed in 2010 (updated in 2011). It is part of the educational programme “Economics and Statistics”, specialisation in “Economics and Statistics”.
The course is intended to provide students with a practical grasp of macroeconomic statistics based on a sound knowledge of the underlying concepts used to measure national economy, principles of processing the raw data and deriving the standard macroeconomic indicators. The emphasis is on statistical thinking rather than mathematical techniques, and the aim is to develop an intuitive understanding of how the methods work and how the statistical results should be interpreted, both at industry, sector or the whole economy level.
The students who complete the course are expected to know:
- how the essential macroeconomic aggregates are computed and how they relate to each other;
- what are the potential uses of macroeconomic statistics for research and what are the limitations, caveats and room for improvement;
- how macroeconomic statistics help policymakers and researchers understand evloving economic structures, including the impact of globalsation and environmental pressures.
The course provides the students with the skills which are central to the statistical studies of macroeconomic performance, including but not limited to:
- calculating the essential macroeconomic aggregates in accordance with the internationally accepted methodologies;
- utilising national and international databases to extract relevant statistical information and produce analytical inputs for the decision-making process;
- interpreting the output of macroeconomic statistics and drawing meaningful conclusions.
Many of the skills taught on the programme, such as handling national and international statistical data sources, are in great demand by employers in public and private sector, in a wide range of organisations conducting large-scale statistical work. The successful completion of this course can also significantly enhance the preparedness for other subjects such as econometric modeling, analysis of social and economic phenomena etc.
Экономика и статистика