What is macroeconomics? The best way to answer is not to give you a formal definition, but rather to take you on an economic tour of the world, to describe both the main economic evolutions and the issues that keep macroeconomists and macroeconomic policy makers awake at night.
At the time of this writing (the fall of 2015), policy makers are sleeping better than they did just a few years ago. In 2008, the world economy entered a major macroeconomic crisis, the deepest since the Great Depression. World output growth, which typically runs at 4 to 5% a year, was actually negative in 2009. Since then, growth has turned positive, and the world economy is slowly recovering. But the crisis has left a number of scars, and some worries remain.
