THE BRANCH OF ECONOMICS concerned with issues like inflation, recessions, and financial shocks is known as macroeconomics. When the economy is going well, macroeconomists are lauded as heroes; when it turns sour, as it did recently, they catch a lot of the blame. In either case, the headlines go to the macroeconomists. We hope that after reading this book, you'll realize there is a whole different breed of economist out there--microeconomists--lurking in the shadows. They seek to understand the choices that individuals make, not just in terms of what they buy but also how often they wash their hands and whether they become terrorists.