Nagata-Assouad dimension via Lipschitz extensions

In the first part of the paper we show how to relate several dimension theories (asymptotic dimension with Higson property, asymptotic dimension of Gromov, and capacity dimension of Buyalo \cite{Buyalo1}) to Nagata-Assouad dimension. This is done by applying two functors on the Lipschitz category of metric spaces: microscopic and macroscopic. In the second part we identify (among spaces of finite Nagata-Assouad dimension) spaces of Nagata-Assouad dimension at most $n$ as those for which the $n$-sphere $S^n$ is a Lipschitz extensor. Large scale and small scale analogs of that result are given.