Following an initial introduction to some of the most fundamental economic concepts, this course will focus on the behavior of the American economy from a macroeconomic perspective. This means that we will be concerned with the performance of the economy at a highly aggregated level: the overall Gross Domestic Product rather than the output of one particular industry, the overall price level rather than the price of one particular item.  After gaining an understanding of the forces that affect the long-run performance of the economy, we will turn our attention to the short-run behavior of the economy.  We will also modify our macroeconomic model to include an international perspective.