Macroeconomics is concerned with the structure, performance, and behavior of the economy as a whole. The prime concern of macroeconomists is to analyze and attempt to understand the underlying determinants of the main aggregate trend is in the economy with respect to the total output of good and services, unemployment, inflation, and the balance of payments. Macroeconomics deals with the increase in output and employment over long periods of time – that is economic growth – and with the short-run fluctuations that constitute the business cycle.

Macroeconomics focuses on the economic behavior and policies that affect consumption and investment, the dollar and the trade balance, the determinants of changes in wages and inflation, monetary and fiscal policies, the money stock, the federal budget, interest rates, and the national debt. In brief, macroeconomics deals with the major economic issues and problems of the day. The theory that has emerged from this study allows macroeconomists to deal effectively with the fundamental questions of can and should the government intervene in the economy to improve its performance.

Macroeconomics is interesting because it deals with important issues. But it is fascinating and challenging too, because it reduces complicated details of the economy to manageable essentials. Those essentials lie in the interactions among the goods, labor, and assets markets of the economy and in the interactions among national economies that trade with each other.