Introduction to Economic Theories

Here is a good video on Post-Keynesian growth theory and basically shows how growth is demand-driven. In the end, you basically get a trade-off where you can either have high investment but low aggregate demand because wages are low and so is consumption as a result so you end up exporting to foreign demand (like China) and in turn grow through increased foreign investment.

The other side is having high consumption driving AD (and thus growth) and low investment but your gdp is still growing and you import to meet demand.

You can find a happier medium in this trade-off that ensures your population has a decent standard of living and you’re not just growing your gdp by marginalising your workers. Protecting society against feudal-level income distribution doesn’t have to come at the cost of the short-run benefits of automation!

Some basic economic courses might be helpful for you such as below:

https://www.coursera.org/learn/intro-economic-theories

If I were to get into studying Economics, I would start with Khan Academy videos on Micro and Macro Economics.

https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/ap-microeconomics

https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/ap-macroeconomics

This will give me a pretty good conceptual base for which to build upon and dive further into the ideas and principles.

Next I would read some books on economics: A search of best economic books yields a large list. I looked into it and those that stood out the most to me were:

1) Freakonomics (Levitt & Dubner)

2) Why Nations Fail (Acemoglu & Robinson)

3) Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Piketty)

4) Animal Spirits (Akerlof & Shiller)

5) The Armchair Economist (Landsburg)

While working through these 5 books I would attempt to complete the 8 week online course through Coursera “Introduction to Economic Theories”. (https://www.coursera.org/learn/intro-economic-theories#about) This should help solidify the Khan Academy lessons and provide a greater context for the ideas.

After having fun getting the basics down I would dive deeper into classic texts. I’ve done a tiny bit of research and though I’m sure there is a lot missing, these are the classics I’d seek to read.

1) Wealth of Nations (Smith)

2) Das Kapital (Marx)

3) Capitalism & Freedom (Friedman)

4) Human Action: A Treatise on Economics (Von Mises)

5) The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (Keynes)

6) The Affluent Society (Galbraith)

7) Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (Schumpeter)

Lastly, I would round out the exploration of Economics with some Yale Open Courses on YouTube and stick with the syllabi presented at https://oyc.yale.edu/

Classes of interest:

1) Financial Markets (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8FB14A2200B87185)

2) Game Theory (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6EF60E1027E1A10B)

3) Capitalism: Success, Crisis, and Reform (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2497FD1251EED4DD)

After this I bet you could definitely hold your own against an undergraduate with a minor in Economics. An Undergraduate Economics Major (looking at various University Handbooks for Major requirements) has several more classes on Micro/Macro Theory, Banking, Statistics, and Accounting.

Anyway, that’s what I’d do and now that I have it outlined like this maybe I will do this for myself and learn some Economics.