The functioning or malfunctioning of the economy affects everyone. Unfortunately, the educational system has failed to adequately teach us about how it all 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		An animated "water flow" audio-visual tour of how the economy works. (Preview Version — still under development)	Level: Beginner - Intermediate
Macroeconomic Balance Sheet Visualizer		An interactive balance-sheet-driven exploration of specific concepts in macroeconomics.	Level: Intermediate - Advanced
Macroeconomic Flow Visualizer		A circular flow simulator allowing control of leakages and injections. (COMING SOON)	Level: Intermediate

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 using multimedia web pages. Videos are a more common format and can be helpful, but the video format can't offer optional tangential details along the way, nor facilitate interactive learning techniques, nor make it natural to pause to digest content at regular intervals.

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 consistent with a branch of macroeconomics sometimes referred to as MMT (Modern Monetary Theory). 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.

Roadmap

Possible topics of future narrated visual tutorials include:

• Private Sector Debt (Household & Corporate)
• Debt Deflation & Depressions
• The European Monetary Union & Unfolding Crisis
• The Functioning of Markets
• Types of Financial Crisis (Bubbles & More)
• Visual Re-enactments of Historical Scenarios:
• 2008+ Financial Crisis
• The Great Depression
• Stagflation (US, 1970s)
• Post-1990 Japan
• Hyperinflations (Weimer Republic, Zimbabwe)
• Drivers of Economic Growth
• Sustainability Topics (Trade Flows, Deficits, Social Security, Environment, etc)
• Intro to Macroeconomic Balance Sheets
• A Political Guide to Economic Prosperity (choose your politics, see compatible policies that would improve prosperity)
• Mechanics of Monetary Policy
• The Endogeneity of the Money Supply

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 hbl - AT- econviz -DOT- org.

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