Trends and Objectives
This measure represents the total value of goods and services produced within a country in a year.
What is Gross Domestic Product (GDP)?
This independent institution sets Australia’s official cash rate.
What is the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA)?
Government attempts to influence the economy through changes in spending and taxation.
What is fiscal policy?
Policies aimed at improving efficiency and productivity across the economy.
What are microeconomic reforms (MERs)?
This pop star’s 2014 hit “Shake It Off” became an anthem for ignoring haters.
Who is Taylor Swift?
This 1994 Disney classic’s soundtrack features songs by Elton John, including “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.”
What is The Lion King?
Consumption, investment, government spending and net exports make up this key economic indicator.
What is aggregate demand?
Price stability, full employment and economic prosperity are the three goals of this organisation.
What are the objectives of the RBA?
Progressive taxes and welfare payments that automatically stabilise the economy.
What are automatic stabilisers?
Successful supply-side reform shifts this aggregate curve to the right.
What is the long-run aggregate supply (LRAS) curve?
Known for her alter ego “Sasha Fierce,” this performer released the visual album Lemonade in 2016.
Who is Beyoncé?
This princess is guided by her fairy godmother and transformed with a pumpkin before the royal ball.
Who is Cinderella?
Economists often consider unemployment between 4 and 5 percent to reflect this labour-market condition.
What is full employment (or the NAIRU)?
When the RBA lowers the cash rate, aggregate demand does this.
What is increase (or shift to the right)?
When the government increases spending or cuts taxes to boost demand, the budget moves toward this balance.
What is a budget deficit (or smaller surplus)?
Labour-market flexibility, deregulation and infrastructure investment are examples of this type of policy.
What are supply-side policies?
This Canadian artist broke out with the song “Can’t Feel My Face,” later headlining the 2021 Super Bowl Halftime Show.
Who is The Weeknd?
This ocean explorer sails with Maui, a demigod who can shapeshift, to restore balance to the world.
What is Moana?
CPI inflation and underlying (core) inflation are used to monitor this macroeconomic objective.
What is price stability?
Savings and investment, cash flow, asset prices and the exchange rate describe these paths through which policy operates.
What are the transmission mechanisms of monetary policy?
One-off cash payments or infrastructure spending used to stimulate the economy.
What are discretionary fiscal policies?
Investment in education and training raises this quality of labour that boosts productivity.
What is human capital?
Song and Artist: “I’m off the deep end, watch as I dive in / I’ll never meet the ground.”
What is “Shallow” by Lady Gaga
This Pixar film explores creativity and class as a rat defies expectations in a Parisian kitchen.
What is Ratatouille?
Improvements in labour efficiency and technology drive this long-run source of growth.
What is productivity growth?
A policy stance where the RBA lowers rates to stimulate borrowing and spending.
What is expansionary monetary policy?
The process by which an initial injection of spending leads to a larger overall increase in GDP.
What is the multiplier effect?
Policies that promote competition and remove entry barriers help firms minimise waste and allocate resources to their most valued use, improving this type of efficiency.
What is allocative efficiency?
Song and Artist: “Yeah, breakfast at Tiffany’s and bottles of bubbles / Girls with tattoos who like getting in trouble.”
What is “7 rings” by Ariana Grande?
This movie’s title character jumps from one arcade game to another, eventually befriending a glitch.
What is Wreck-It Ralph?
A widening current-account deficit can threaten this objective by increasing reliance on foreign debt.
What is external stability?
When Australian interest rates fall relative to overseas rates, this typically happens to the AUD.
What is depreciation of the Australian dollar?
Because it requires parliamentary approval, fiscal policy suffers from this long decision-making delay.
What is an implementation lag?
Lower unit costs and higher productivity make exports more competitive internationally, improving this objective.
What is international competitiveness (or external stability)?
Song and Artist: “I got that sunshine in my pocket, got that good soul in my feet.”
What is “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” by Justin Timberlake?
The only Disney animated feature where the protagonist is not human, not animal, and never speaks — yet won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2009.
What is “WALL·E”?
During periods of low unemployment, rising inflation pressures suggest the economy has reached this level of output — beyond which real GDP cannot grow sustainably.
What is potential (or full-capacity) GDP?
When the RBA raises rates to contain inflation caused by rising energy prices, it is responding to this type of inflationary pressure rather than one driven by excess demand.
What is cost-push inflation?
When a government funds an infrastructure boom through borrowing during full employment, this effect may occur as public spending displaces private investment.
What is crowding out?
Reforming the National Broadband Network to lower business costs and enable innovation illustrates how microeconomic reform improves this specific form of efficiency.
What is dynamic efficiency?
Known for her whisper-like vocals and dark aesthetics, this artist co-wrote the Barbie movie song “What Was I Made For?”
Who is Billie Eilish?
This Oscar-winning film uses Día de los Muertos as its setting and features the song “Remember Me.”
What is Coco?
Australia records strong GDP growth but falling real wages and worsening housing affordability. Students analysing this scenario would argue that growth has failed to achieve these two objectives simultaneously.
What are equitable distribution of income and improved living standards (or material wellbeing)?
The RBA implements monetary policy by maintaining the overnight cash rate within a 0.5% band between the deposit and lending rates on ES balances. This operational system is known as this.
What is the cash rate corridor?
Fiscal stimulus can support growth but worsen external stability if the marginal propensity to import is high. This dynamic demonstrates a tension between these two macro objectives.
What are economic growth and external stability?
Microeconomic reform can lift potential output, yet without accompanying demand-side support it may lead to this outcome — where the economy operates below new productive capacity.
What is under-utilisation (or an output gap)?
This artist broke Spotify’s record for the most-streamed song in a single day in 2023
Who is Adele?
This 1940 Disney film was the studio’s bold experiment in pairing classical music with animation, featuring “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”
What is “Fantasia”?