The functioning or malfunctioning of the economy affects everyone. Unfortunately, the educational system has failed to adequately teach us how the economy works, and myths abound. The goal of this site is to make important concepts in macroeconomics and markets easier to understand for a wider audience.

Current Menu of Visualizations

How the Economy Works — A Visual Tutorial	A "quick start" MMT-inspired narrated guide to the economy. (Part 1, optionally continuing to parts 2 & 3)	about 10 minutes	Level: Beginner - Intermediate
How the Economy Works (PART 2)	A shortcut to Part 2 in case you stopped at the end of Part 1.	about 11 minutes
How the Economy Works (PART 3)	A shortcut to Part 3, the final part.	about 9 minutes
How Loans Create Money	A narrated visual guide to how bank loans create money. (AKA "loans create deposits".)	about 5 minutes	Level: Beginner - Intermediate
Why Central Banks Don't Control Money Supply	Reserve ratios, capital requirements, cash withdrawals, and more. (INCOMPLETE)	about 8 minutes (so far)	Level: Intermediate - Advanced
Macroeconomic Balance Sheet Visualizer	An interactive balance-sheet-driven exploration of specific concepts in macroeconomics.		Level: Intermediate - Advanced
Macroeconomic Circular Flow Visualizer	A circular flow simulator allowing control of leakages and injections. (PREVIEW VERSION)		Level: Intermediate - Advanced
EconViz Blog	See updates on site progress and contribute to the discussion. Subscribe: RSS Feed  Email  Follow @EconViz

About This Site

Macroeconomics is very well suited to conceptual visualization, yet most educational material (for example in the blogosphere) remains text-centered rather than visually-centered. This site provides content in an interactive multimedia web format.

Why not just provide videos? The EconViz approach is an attempt to go beyond what conventional videos on the web can offer by incorporating the following features (in additional to the visuals, animation and narration that videos have too):

• EconViz diagrams are interactive — mouse over elements to see conceptual connections dynamically highlighted, supplemental text bubbles, etc.
• Drill-down to optional advanced details — many steps of the tutorial explanations can optionally be clicked on to read more.
• Interactive educational exercises are embedded in the content — use buttons and sliders to control diagrams and learn concepts by "playing" with the economy's mechanics directly! (In the future this could include hands-on quizzes, games, etc).
• Natural pauses between pages to read and digest content allow easy topic review (if desired) to reinforce concepts before moving to the next page.
• Diagrams scale to the size of your browser window with no loss of detail (EconViz uses vector graphics, while standard videos are limited to bitmap graphics).

Data visualization helps us grasp the size and direction of trends in the economy and markets, but doesn't directly illustrate the underlying mechanics. The most common form is charts and graphs, but many other formats have been explored. This site will only focus on data visualization to the extent that it enhances understanding of the concepts.

The workings of the economy as explained on this site are inspired by a branch of macroeconomics sometimes referred to as MMT (Modern Monetary Theory) or neo-Chartalism. MMT is part of (and largely consistent with) the heterodox Post-Keynesian school of economics. Related academic work can be found at the University of Missouri-Kansas City economics department, the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, and many places on the web, for example the New Economic Perspectives blog, Bill Mitchell's blog, and Warren Mosler's blog.

Contact

This site is brought to you by "hbl", a software engineer long fascinated by macroeconomics who also occasionally blogs at ThoughtOfferings.com.
You can email feedback to gro.z1343055392ivnoc1343055392e@lbh1343055392.

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