This graduate textbook is a "primer" in macroeconomics. It starts with essential undergraduate macroeconomics and develops in a simple and rigorous manner the central topics of modern macroeconomic theory including rational expectations, growth, business cycles, money, unemployment, government policy, and the macroeconomics of nonclearing markets. The emphasis throughout the book is on both foundations and presenting for each topic the simplest model that will deliver the relevant answers.

This graduate textbook is a "primer" in macroeconomics. It starts with essential undergraduate macroeconomics and develops in a simple and rigorous manner the central topics of modern macroeconomic theory including rational expectations, growth, business cycles, money, unemployment, government policy, and the macroeconomics of nonclearing markets. The emphasis throughout the book is on both foundations and presenting the simplest model for each topic that will deliver the relevant answers. The first two chapters recall the main workhorses of undergraduate macroeconomics: the Solow-Swan growth model, the Keynesian IS-LM model, and the Phillips curve. The next chapters present four fundamental "building blocks" of modern macroeconomics: rational expectations, intertemporal dynamic models, nonclearing markets and imperfect competition, and uncertainty. Later the book deals with growth, notably the Ramsey model, overlapping generations, and endogenous growth. Chapter 10 moves to the famous "real business cycles" (RBC), which integrate in a unified framework growth and fluctuations. The final chapters look at the issue of stabilization, how best to guard the economy from shocks, and the connections between politics and the macroeconomy. To make the book self contained, a mathematical appendix gives a number of simple technical results that are sufficient to follow the formal developments of the book.

Introduction 1. Growth 2. Output, Inflation, and Stabilization 3. Rational Expectations 4. Intertemporal Equilibria with Optimizing Agents 5. Nonclearing Markets and Imperfect Competition 6. Uncertainty and Financial Assets 7. The Ramsey Model 8. Overlapping Generations 9. Endogenous Growth 10. Competitive Business Cycles 11. Money 12. Money and Cycles 13. Nominal Rigidities and Fluctuations 14. Consumption, Investment, Inventories, and Credit 15. Unemployment: Basic Models 16. A Dynamic View of Unemployment 17. Policy: The Public Finance Approach 18. Stabilization Policies 19. Dynamic Consistency and Credibility 20. Political Economy A. Mathematical Appendix Bibliography Index