The big picture: analyzing economy-wide phenomena such as growth, inflation and unemployment. Contrast with microeconomics, the study of the behavior of individual markets, workers, households and firms. Although economists generally separate themselves into distinct macro and micro camps, macroeconomic phenomena are the product of all the microeconomic activity in an economy. The precise relationship between macro and micro is not particularly well understood, which has often made it difficult for a government to deliver well-run macroeconomic policy.