There is an uncomfortably large gulf between academic research and what policy economists use to understand the economy. A Practical Guide to Macroeconomics shows how economists at policy institutions approach important real-world questions and explains why existing academic work theoretical and empirical has little to offer them. It argues that this disconnect between theory and practice is problematic for policymaking and the economics profession and looks at what's needed to make academic research more relevant for policy. The book also covers topics related to economic measurement and provides a compact overview of US macroeconomic statistics that will help researchers use these data in a better-informed way.

Provides a compact overview of topics related to economic measurement
Identifies a number of deficiencies in conventional theoretical and empirical approaches that are currently used to describe macroeconomic phenomena
Encourages economists to produce research that moves away from these conventional but inappropriate ways of analyzing key questions in macroeconomics
Helps users of US macroeconomic data avoid a number of pitfalls associated with using these data in their empirical work