All the mind maps in the answers were made by me using excel. Any form of citation, reprint, etc. must indicate that they are from Zhang Wanzimu. I posted all the high-definition pictures of mind maps in the status of Station B (user name of Station B: Zhang Wanzimu). You can find them by looking through the status history. You can pick them up for yourself. I recorded a cross-talk video about some of the macro maps, which is also available at Station B. Regarding the macroeconomic framework, I am still sorting it out further, and the new high-definition map will be posted on station B. This answer is divided into three parts:

Part One: Macroeconomic Framework

There are actually many macroeconomic analysis frameworks. The key depends on what issues you want to analyze. For example, whether you focus on economic growth and The cycle still focuses on production and distribution. The textbooks for university economics majors are actually quite out of touch with daily macro analysis practice. I will share with you a system that I have sorted out myself. The basic purpose of sorting out is to connect all macro indicators and form them into a system in order to form a judgment on the whole.

First of all, divide the current economy into two levels: the physical level and the financial level. The entity level mainly includes production activities and non-financial circulation activities (logistics is counted as the entity level, but credit is not included). The financial aspect is mainly about pricing various assets, and the essence of this pricing is the allocation of resources. Activities at the entity level must be carried out at any stage of human beings. As long as human beings exist, they must engage in production. But this is not the case at the financial level. The financial level changes with the development of productivity, because finance itself is about distribution. If there is a better distribution method, finance itself will change drastically or even disappear.

We are concerned about macroeconomics, mainly production activities, that is, the physical level, because making the cake bigger can solve many problems. Statistics on the real economy can start from these two levels. From the perspective of entity-level statistics, this is easy to understand. For example, if we look at industrial added value, fixed asset investment, and electricity consumption and logistics data, we can better understand the current economic situation. From a financial perspective, the principle behind this is that in a market economy, all production activities must ultimately be circulated in the form of market pricing, and all of this is measured in currency. Consumption, house purchase, enterprise expansion, government infrastructure, these real economic activities all correspond to specific financial statistics: consumer loans, medium and long-term consumer loans for residents, medium and long-term corporate loans, government bonds. As mentioned earlier, financial The process of asset pricing is essentially resource allocation, and every real economic behavior requires resource support, so financial data can be used to collect statistics on the physical situation.

Part 2: Cycle

The social financing cycle (it can also be said to be the credit cycle, because I mainly divide it through social financing data, so I am used to calling it the social financing cycle). This cycle belongs to the financial level is extremely important. There are roughly two stages:

The first stage: economic downturn, credit contraction, and financing items represented by bill financing increase. Bill financing is a good contrarian indicator. When the economy is not good, companies are unwilling to lend money, and banks have lending tasks, they will use bills to offset their borrowing costs. Therefore, once this account continues to rise, the economy will generally be in a period of credit contraction.

The second stage: Government-led countercyclical credit financing rises, and the credit contraction continues but slows down. Mainly represented by the growth rate of government bonds and medium- and long-term consumer loans for residents bottoming out and rebounding. However, procyclical credit financing is still declining at this time, mainly represented by medium and long-term corporate loans. Part of the reason for this year's economic difficulties is that residents are unable to obtain medium- and long-term consumer loans. The growth of government debt needs to offset the slowdown in residents' medium- and long-term loans before it can grow steadily. You can imagine the difficulty. The government's work-for-relief measures to stabilize the economy have taken effect, with demand increasing, procyclical credit expansion, and social finance rising.

Part Three: Methodology of Macroeconomic Learning

Here are my suggestions on how to learn macroeconomic analysis. Macroeconomic learning is divided into three stages:

1. Establishment of a unified framework of macroeconomic indicators.

That’s what I did in the above pictures, because no matter what economic theory, it ultimately requires statistical data testing and tracking.

Therefore, the first step is to divide the main macro topics and sort out the macroeconomic indicators around each topic, the economic meaning behind them, the direction of flow, and the entities involved, and build these into a complete framework to break the silos between various knowledge points. formula relationship. I have a point of view: logical self-consistency and correctness of opinions are not the most important, the most important thing is the integrity of the system. If your system is only partial, but the internal logic is self-consistent, then there must be something wrong with this theory, or the current macro is consistent with your system assumptions. Once the macro changes, the system will fail. Only by establishing a unified framework can we have the ability to judge other people's opinions and logic.

2. Sorting out the economic crisis.

The economy is not like physics, which can be tested repeatedly. Therefore, all major macroeconomic phenomena in history are rare experiments and are worthy of sorting out. I originally wanted to say it was a sorting out of economic history, but I think some friends may get caught up in sorting out endless data (a lot of homework has been done in the previous article). Sorting out the economic crisis is actually sorting out the cycle. Reviewing the economic crisis does not require you to sort out the causes, but to sort out a series of events from a completely objective perspective, using only the timeline as the only context, and objectively present the entire process of the economic crisis from brewing to outbreak. Then combine it with your own time, observe the phenomena in various countries, and further understand. In fact, this stage is preparation for preliminary induction through reading history.

3. Reading of viewpoints from various schools.

What schools of thought are worth sorting out? 1. The system is complete enough; 2. The proposer explains his own theory in time and space; 3. The proposer’s theory is adopted by the ruling party. Having 1, 2 or 3 alone is worth sorting out. When sorting out, sort it out in the order in which the proposer discusses it. Because of the previous accumulation, I can make my own evaluation after sorting it out this time. It is best to sort out the competing theories of scholars.

For economic issues, it is not enough to rely on economic theory to explain them. It also requires the integration of other social sciences. I am still on the way to sorting out this aspect. Finally, the understanding of the macro framework itself requires considerable effort and a large amount of information. I hope that the questioner will not stop at these answers, but use his or her own preferred answer as a direction, and use his or her own knowledge to accumulate and Sort out and inspect further.