Macroeconomic objectives, fiscal & monetary policy

This lesson pulls the whole macroeconomy together. We set out the five aims every government pursues — full employment, low inflation, growth, a fairer distribution of income and balance of payments stability — then meet the tools used to reach them: fiscal policy, monetary policy, supply-side, legislation and regional policy. We look closely at how taxes are structured (progressive, proportional, regressive) and, crucially, at who really bears a tax — its incidence, which depends on elasticity. We finish with the highest-mark idea of all: the aims conflict, so macro policy is always a matter of reasoned judgement. Throughout we keep Namibia at the centre — the Bank of Namibia, the N$/rand peg, the national budget and our deep regional inequality.