The study of economies and the factors affecting economies is called economics. The discipline of economics can be broken into two major areas of focus, microeconomics, and macroeconomics. Microeconomics studies the behavior of individuals and firms in order to understand why they make the economic decisions they do and how these decisions affect the larger economic system. Microeconomics studies why various goods have different values and how individuals coordinate and cooperate with each other. Microeconomics tends to focus on economic tendencies, such as how individual choices and actions impact changes in production. Macroeconomics, on the other hand, studies the entire economy, focusing on large-scale decisions and issues. Macroeconomics includes the study of economy-wide factors such as the effect of rising prices or inflation on the economy. Macroeconomics also focuses on the rate of economic growth or gross domestic product (GDP), which represents the total amount of goods and services produced in an economy. Changes in unemployment and national income are also studied. In short, macroeconomics studies how the aggregate economy behaves.