Macroeconomists try to forecast economic conditions to help consumers, firms and governments make better decisions.

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Consumers want to know how easy it will be to find work, how much it will cost to buy goods and services in the market, or how much it may cost to borrow money. Businesses use macroeconomic analysis to determine whether expanding production will be welcomed by the market. Will consumers have enough money to buy the products, or will the products sit on shelves and collect dust? Governments turn to the macroeconomy when budgeting spending, creating taxes, deciding on interest rates and making policy decisions.

Normative economic analysis refers to economic statements or theories that cannot be empirically proven whereas positive economic analysis refers to economic statements or theories that can be empirically proven. For example "a ban in smoking in public places will reduce the revenue of the tobacco industry" is a positive statement because you can collect data to prove whther it is true or false. On the other hand, the statement "unemployment is preferable to inflation" is a normative statement because it reflects a personal belief and thus cannot be verified or falsified.

Positive statements are statements that attempt to describe the world as it is while Normative statements (prescriptive statements) are statements which states how the world should be. Normative statements often provides solutions to current economic problems. Ex: Positive: Smoking is bad for our health Normative: The government should ban smoking.