本书的一大特点是摒弃了以往教材对数学推导过度依赖，更多地通过范例给出直观的经济学概念和观点。作者引入了一些核心原理，然后通过大量的事例给予说明并加以应用。书中还配有与这些原理相关的问题和练习题，以供学生课后练习使用。本书的另一特色是加强了对学生的经济学应用能力的培养，鼓励大家用基本的经济学原理来解释和解释发生在自己周围的一些实际问题。

作为宏观经济学入门水平的教材，本书适合于大专院校经济管理各相关专业用做教材，也可作为普通读者了解宏观经济学的读物。

Robert H. Frank is the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management and a Professor of Economics at Cornell University's S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management. He contributes to the "Economic View" column, which appears every fifth Sunday in the The New York Times.

Frank holds a B.S. in mathematics from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and an M.A. in statistics and a Ph.D. in economics, both from UC Berkeley. Until 2001, he was the Goldwin Smith Professor of Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy in the Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences.

Frank has also been a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Nepal, the chief economist for the Civil Aeronautics Board, a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, and a Professor of American Civilization at École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris.

Ben S. Bernanke began a second term as Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System on February 1, 2010. Dr. Bernanke also serves as Chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee, the System's principal monetary policymaking body. He originally took office as Chairman on February 1, 2006, when he also began a 14-year term as a member of the Board. His second term as Chairman ends January 31, 2014, and his term as a Board member ends January 31, 2020.

Before his appointment as Chairman, Dr. Bernanke was Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, from June 2005 to January 2006.

Dr. Bernanke has already served the Federal Reserve System in several roles. He was a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 2002 to 2005; a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Banks of Philadelphia (1987-89), Boston (1989-90), and New York (1990-91, 1994-96); and a member of the Academic Advisory Panel at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (1990-2002).

From 1994 to 1996, Dr. Bernanke was the Class of 1926 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. He was the Howard Harrison and Gabrielle Snyder Beck Professor of Economics and Public Affairs and Chair of the Economics Department at the university from 1996 to 2002. Dr. Bernanke had been a Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton since 1985.