Whereas Volume One: Microeconomics dealt with the optimizing individual, Volume Two: Macroeconomics explains the factors that affect the economy of an entire country and, indeed, the planet. It explores the two big concerns of macroeconomics: how economies grow and why economies collapse. It also illustrates the basics of the labour market and unemployment, inflation and debt, what the GDP is and what it measures, and the influence of government, trade, and technology on the economy. Along the way it covers the economics of global poverty, climate change, and the business cycle. In short, if any of these topics have cropped up in a news story and caused you to wish you grasped the underlying basics, this book is for you. And while walking you through an entire introductory macroeconomics course, its cartoon characters—with cameos from Nobel Prize–winning economists such as Milton Friedman and Paul Krugman—take the sting out of the subject.