General economics and macroeconomic policy
General economics and macroeconomic policy tests your ability to use national accounting, growth diagnostics and monetary-fiscal analysis - and to connect them to the macroeconomic hypotheses written into the finance law.
National accounting
GDP can be read from production, expenditure (C + I + G + X − M) or income. Nominal GDP is at current prices, real GDP at constant prices, and their ratio gives the GDP deflator. GNP/NNI add net factor income: workers' remittances lift gross national income well above GDP. The HCP is the statistical authority producing national accounts and the IPC.
Policy framework
Bank Al-Maghrib (statute: loi 40-06, 2006) sets the key rate through its Conseil. The dirham is managed within a band against a currency basket, the fluctuation band having been widened in stages to ±5%. Fiscal policy operates through the LF: the Treasury's financing need equals the overall deficit plus amortisation. Inflation is tracked by the IPC and core inflation, with wage and energy decisions feeding second-round effects.
Growth and labour
Potential output and the output gap; Okun-type links between growth and unemployment; sector composition (rainfall-sensitive agriculture, phosphates and derivatives, automotive, aeronautics, textiles, tourism, offshoring) explains volatility.
Worked example
Nominal GDP grows 6.0%, the deflator rises 2.5%, population grows 1.0%. Real growth = (1.060 / 1.025) − 1 = 3.41%. Real per-capita growth = (1.0341 / 1.01) − 1 = 2.39%. Subtracting 2.5 from 6.0 gives 3.5%, an approximation that slightly overstates growth.
Traps
Deflating by the CPI instead of the GDP deflator; treating remittances as GDP (they are current transfers); reading a nominal increase as a real improvement; assuming BAM targets an exchange-rate level rather than managing a band while steering inflation.