The study of economics is frequently divided into two categories:

(1) macroeconomics

and

(2) microeconomics.

Macroeconomics

looks at things which tend to affect the whole economy.
examines the goals for an economy, such as low inflation, low unemployment and economic growth.
explores monetary and fiscal policy, which are the tools used to achieve these economic goals.

Microeconomics

looks at things which primarily influence individuals or a small portion of the economy.
examines individual markets, such as the labor market, the capital market, or the markets for goods and services.
explores what we do when markets do not give us desirable results. For example, markets may create poverty or pollution or monopoly power which is socially unacceptable.

"Can't see the forest for the trees" is an idiom used to describe "someone who is too involved in the details of a problem to look at the situation as a whole." (Hirsch, Jr., E.D., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1988.)

In this analogy, macroeconomics is looking at the entire forest. Micro economics is examining the individual trees.

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