1)Why is macroeconomics called the income theory?

2)What are some examples of macroeconomic drivers?

3)What is it like doing research in macroeconomics? Do people actually travel to certain countries to do this, or is it solely just a lot of number crunching, with vast data sets, in front of a computer?

1)Macroeconomics is the study of the economy in its entirety. It studies the aggregates and total values that are useful in deriving conclusions about the economic status of the economy.

Macroeconomics is called the theory of income as it is a major macroeconomic variable and the study revolves around the need to determine the level of income as well as employment.

2)The main drivers of macroeconomics include

• Interest rate. Changes in interest rate affect the performance of the entire economy. Basically, the interest rate has the potentials of triggering economic growth. The reason for the argument is the fact that lowering interest rate encourages borrowing as loans are relatively cheap. The move further leads to increased investments as well as aggregate demand due to the increase in the supply of money. Subsequently, the increased investments contribute to the creation of employment and improved gross domestic product.
• Consumption and availability of labor. Human beings provide consumption and providers of labor input, which is a crucial factor in the production process. Notably, countries experiencing population growth are richly endowed with labor input placing them on the upper hand of advancing economically. Besides, high consumption levels create aggregate demand and the need for continued production.
• Availability of natural resources. The exploitation of natural resources contributes to increased production possibility curve. They include gold, oil, and other mineral deposits which contribute to economic growth as they can be exported, enabling a nation to earn capital inflow.

3)

It really depends on the type of research you are doing. For the most part though it is more number crunching than traveling. This is especially the cass in the modern era. Even if you are trying to study historical texts can request them to be scanned. Most importantly though, current macroeconomic research must be verified by data. This is because the rise of data science has led economists to believe they can model the macroeconomy.

The best proof of this is that econometrics is now a requirement for most economics majors. They are taught to use STATA. Many argue these students are being taught to rely to heavily on statistical techniques that can't truly model the economy though.