Macropolis – Learning macroeconomics through a game
MACROPOLIS
Teaching Resource · Macroeconomics
Most students spend half a semester learning that aggregate demand is AD = C + I + G + (X-M) in a Principles of Macroeconomics class. But what does that really mean in an economy?
Macropolis is a browser game. You are mayor, treasury, and central bank of a small open economy. You build the city, set the interest rate, taxes, government spending, and the money supply, then end the year and find out what your choices did to growth, inflation, and the people looking for work. Nothing to install, no account, no data collected.
Demand policy moves the economy around its potential output, or the full-employment output. Only capital, labor, and technology move long-term potential itself.
How to play in five minutes
The whole loop
Build the city. Each building is a piece of the economy in disguise. Houses are workers and consumers, factories are capital, universities are technology, banks move savings toward investment, ports open you to the world. Click a building, then click an empty tile.
Set policy. Four sliders at the bottom. Interest rate and money supply growth are your monetary tools; the tax rate and government spending are fiscal. The Economy tab shows the projected effect before you commit.
End the year. The game computes demand against your potential output, works out inflation and unemployment, balances the books, and every so often throws a surprise at you. Build, decide, live with it, repeat.
Want the full walkthrough, the five scenarios, and a discussion of what the model leaves out? Read the full guide to Macropolis. Teaching with it? There is a full instructor’s guide too.