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Issue Information South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2024-03-11
No abstract is available for this article.
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The impact of energy prices on inflation and economic growth in Mozambique: A wavelet approach and OLS estimator South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2024-03-06 Gilmar Fernando Dias da Conceição
The paper is using the Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT) and the OLS estimator to examine the relationship between energy prices (coal and gas), inflation and economic growth in Mozambique. Coal and gas are the primary commodity and source of revenue for the country. The research uses quarterly data from 2001 to 2022. Among other results, we found evidence of high coherence between macroeconomic variables
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Total factor productivity in Kenyan manufacturing firms: The role of ISO certification and direct vs indirect export intensity South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2024-02-23 Cyprian Amutabi
Using the World Bank panel enterprise data for Kenya for the period 2007–2013–2018, we examined the role of ISO certification and export intensity in explaining the total factor productivity (TFP) of Kenyan manufacturing firms. Contrary to previous studies that largely focus on export propensity, this paper distinguished between the effects of direct and indirect export intensity. To address the endogeneity
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The effectiveness of macroprudential policies in managing extreme capital flow episodes South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2024-02-05 David de Villiers, Hylton Hollander, Dawie van Lill
Against the backdrop of a proliferation of policy tools in recent years, there is ongoing policy uncertainty surrounding the suitability of capital flow management in mitigating systemic risk and financial disruptions. We study the effectiveness of macroprudential policies in managing extreme capital flow episodes (surges, stops, flight, and retrenchment), comparing them to capital controls and foreign
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Climate change-related shocks, assets and welfare outcomes in South Africa South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2024-01-27 Fabio Andrés Díaz Pabón, Muna Shifa, Vimal Ranchhod, Takwanisa Machemedze
Climate change and its consequences pose significant economic and social challenges around the world. Droughts have frequently afflicted South Africa, with the most recent severe drought occurring in 2015/2016. However, there has been little empirical research estimating the impact of climate-related shocks on individual well-being in South Africa. In this paper, we investigate the impact of the 2015/2016
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A supply-side alternative for SRD grants in South Africa South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2024-01-25 Jan Horn Van Heerden, Jonathan Mark Horridge, David Suarez-Cuesta
During a lively debate between Haroon Bhorat and Michael Sachs at the University of Pretoria recently, Bhorat pleaded for supply-side measures to alleviate poverty in South Africa, rather than demand-side measures. (The debate took place during a session at the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences' Inaugural Research Day on 8 September, 2023).Bhorat claimed that the SRD grants could not secure
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Fiscal policy and dimensions of inequality in South Africa: A time-varying coefficient approach South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2024-01-24 Jeanne Terblanche, Dawie van Lill, Hylton Hollander
South Africa continues to face high inequality levels despite its progressive tax and extensive social protection systems. We compare the dynamic impact of fiscal policy on the distribution of incomes, wages and wealth in South Africa from 1993 to 2019. For this purpose, we use a time-varying parameter vector autoregression to estimate the impact of direct tax revenue and total transfer spending on
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What goes up must come down? The effect of ‘2020’ on university students' academic performance trajectories South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2024-01-14 Emma Whitelaw, Nicola Branson
Using longitudinal, institutional data, we estimate the effects of pandemic-related closures on the academic performance trajectories of undergraduate students at a university in South Africa. Leveraging data from both the 2020 and 2021 academic years, and using difference-in-difference models, we find that performance gains made in 2020 are reversed in 2021, with performance dropping relative to pre-pandemic
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Cultural consumption and equality of access during economic downturns: The expenditure Gini coefficient for South Africa South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2024-01-07 Jen Snowball, Andre Gouws
An important social development goal is to broaden access, especially equality of access, to arts, culture and heritage. This paper used large, national-level data sets to investigate the equality of access to cultural and creative goods and services in South Africa by calculating an expenditure Gini coefficient for cultural and creative industries. Results showed that the Gini coefficient of expenditure
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The macroeconomics of establishing a basic income grant in South Africa South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-12-26 Hylton Hollander, Roy Havemann, Daan Steenkamp
This paper quantifies the effect of fiscal transfers on the trade-off between social relief and debt accumulation and discusses the economic growth and fiscal implications of different combinations of expanded social support and funding choices. Given South Africa's already high level of public debt, the opportunity to fund a basic income grant through higher debt is limited. Using a general equilibrium
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Measuring the unit cost of financial intermediation in South Africa: A measure of bank productivity South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-12-26 Keaoleboga Mncube, Nicola Viegi
This paper presents evidence on productivity growth in the South African banking industry in the last 30 years. The productivity measures we construct shed light on whether the development, increased contribution and influence of the banking industry have translated into lower cost of intermediation and improved productivity and efficiency of the banking sector. Our results show that there is no apparent
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South African student retention during 2020: Evidence from system-wide higher education institutional data South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-12-13 Nicola Branson, Emma Whitelaw
Using longitudinal, institutional data, we document the impact of COVID-19 on undergraduate student retention at public universities in South Africa in 2020. We find that student dropout increased in 2020 for students in years 3–5, with little evidence of a change for those entering their second year of study. These aggregate findings mask significant differences across institutions. Students enrolled
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Monetary policy, inflation and distributional impact: South Africa's case South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-12-06 Ken Miyajima
This paper presents further empirical support for the finding that the impact of inflation and that of policy instruments to manage inflation are not distributed equally across households of different income groups. In particular, the evidence using South African data suggests that monetary policy tightening, which seeks to maintain low and stable inflation, has a relatively modest effect on real consumption
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Approximating Botswana's financial cycle: Expanding the macroprudential toolkit South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-12-06 Leonard Nnete Setshegetso, Mogakolodi Mado
This study estimates the financial cycle for Botswana using the Christiano–Fitzgerald band-pass filter, unobserved components approach and a Markov switching dynamic factor model. Using real credit and equity prices, together with several macroeconomic variables from 2001Q1 to 2021Q4, we find that the domestic financial cycle generally captures movements along the business cycle, with peaks reflecting
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Issue Information South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-12-06
No abstract is available for this article.
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Issue Information South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-09-06
No abstract is available for this article.
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The labour market and poverty impacts of COVID-19 in South Africa South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-09-06 Ihsaan Bassier, Joshua Budlender, Rocco Zizzamia, Ronak Jain
We estimate COVID-19-related employment and poverty impacts in South Africa. We observe a 40% decline in active employment between February and April 2020, half of which was composed of job terminations rather than furloughs. Initially, vulnerable groups were disproportionately affected by the labour market shock. Exploiting the dataset's panel dimension and comparing lockdown incomes of job losers
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Productivity and reallocation under monopolistic competition: A Micro panel data analysis South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-08-29 Samuel Vika Mhlanga
This article studies the structural aggregate productivity growth (APG) decomposition with demand- and supply-side controls, determines comparative statics predictions for firms and economic outcomes and examines patterns of input distortions. By moving from price-taking conditions to markets featuring markup heterogeneity for product varieties, the paper finds amplification of production inefficiency
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Ruggedness and child health outcomes: Evidence from Burundi, Cameroon, Ethiopia and Nigeria South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-08-23 Carolyn Chisadza, Matthew Clance, Fritz van der Merwe, Eleni Yitbarek
This paper examines the effect of terrain ruggedness on child stunting in Burundi, Cameroon, Ethiopia and Nigeria. Using a cross-section analysis with data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and a measure that captures variation in the terrains of the countries, we find that the more difficult it is to traverse the terrain in Burundi, Cameroon and Nigeria, the higher the likelihood of child
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Effects of terrorism and economic policy uncertainty on economic complexity in Africa: A study of the moderating role of governance institutions South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-08-16 Jonathan E. Ogbuabor, Ekene ThankGod Emeka, Emmanuel O. Nwosu
Following the paucity of empirical evidence on the effects of terrorism and uncertainty on economic complexity in Africa and the moderating role of governance institutions on these relationships, this study raised two important questions. First, how are terrorism and uncertainty impacting on economic complexity in Africa? Second, how are governance institutions moderating the effects of terrorism and
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Is inflation uncertainty a self-fulfilling prophecy in South Africa? South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-07-23 Chevaughn van der Westhuizen, Reneé van Eyden, Goodness C. Aye
Inflation uncertainty causes macroeconomic ills and instability in the economy. This paper investigates if rising levels of inflation uncertainty serve as a source of higher inflation outcomes or vice versa, to determine if inflation uncertainty is potentially a self-fulfilling prophecy. In addition, this paper examines the impact of inflation targeting, implemented in South Africa in February 2000
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Public spending, credit market conditions and economic activity in South Africa South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-07-13 Naser Yenus Nuru
This study investigates the effects of public spending shocks across South Africa's credit market conditions from 1965Q2 to 2022Q1 employing a Threshold Vector Autoregression model. Credit conditions are approximated by credit growth. The empirical findings exhibit that the financial environment matters. More specifically, the output multipliers of 1 or 2 standard deviations of positive or negative
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Issue Information South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-06-12
No abstract is available for this article.
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Interdependence between climate change and migration: Does agriculture, geography, and development level matter in sub-Saharan Africa? South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-04-25 Frank Bannor, Isaiah Hubert Magambo, Jugal Mahabir, Jeanluc Mubenga Tshitaka
Concerns about the human effects of climate change have contributed to forecasts of how populations in drought-prone and flood-prone areas would respond to these events. Empirical studies have predicted that human migration has been among the critical resilient strategy in responding to the impact of climate change. To obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the climate–migration relationship
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Social capital and women's willingness to pay for safe water access: Evidence from African rural areas South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-04-19 Raffaele Scuderi, Giuseppe Tesoriere, Giulio Pedrini
This paper investigates the relationship between women willingness to pay for water access and civic participation as social capital dimension. We use a dataset from a survey in three rural districts of Karamoja, one of the poorest regions of Uganda. Our results suggest that civic participation is not a silver bullet to empower women in rural areas; rather, its effect depends on both context and type
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Impact of capital regulation on interest rate pass-through in Sub-Saharan Africa South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-03-19 Sopani Gondwe, Tendai Gwatidzo, Nyasha Mahonye
Using monthly data from 2005 to 2019, we employ a dynamic heterogeneous cross-sectionally autoregressive distributed lag (CS-ARDL) model to examine the impact of higher regulatory capital requirements on the interest rate pass-through (IRPT) to bank lending and deposit rates in 22 Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries. Two key findings emerge from the investigation: (i) the average IRPT in SSA is incomplete
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Government social protection programme spending and household welfare in Lesotho South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-03-16 Joachim Boko, Dhushyanth Raju, Stephen D. Younger
Lesotho has notably high levels of poverty and inequality despite a high level of government spending on social protection programmes. We assess the performance of this spending in reducing consumption poverty and inequality, applying benefit incidence and microsimulation methods to 2017/2018 household survey data. We investigate the distributional effects of actual spending as well as those of a hypothetical
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How do firms in Sub-Saharan Africa benefit from global value chains? South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-03-06 Carolina Calatayud, María Engracia Rochina Barrachina
Sub-Saharan Africa has increased its presence in GVCs but remains the least integrated area in the world. In this paper, we go a step further in the related literature and descend to firm-level data. Thus, we identify the determinants and effects of GVC participation of manufacturing firms in the region. We use indicators of the extensive and intensive margins of participation and of backward and forward
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Issue Information South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-03-02
No abstract is available for this article.
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Fiscal risks and their impact on banks' capital buffers in South Africa South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2023-01-20 Konstantin Makrelov, Neryvia Pillay, Bojosi Morule
South Africa's fiscal balances have deteriorated significantly over the last decade, although the economy has been recording disappointing economic growth rates even prior to the COVID-19 crisis. In this paper, we estimate a series of equations to test how sovereign risk premia affect capital buffers, while controlling for variables identified in the literature, such as size of banks and the economic
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Social institutions, gender attitudes and female labour force participation in sub-Saharan Africa South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-12-28 Tendai Zawaira, Matthew Clance, Carolyn Chisadza
Using data from the Ethnographic Atlas and World Values Survey within a structural equation modelling (GSEM) framework, we analyse how historical social institutions and current gender attitudes influence female employment outcomes, specifically female labour force participation in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). We find that patriarchal systems generally reduce female labour force participation, in relation
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Issue Information South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-11-30
No abstract is available for this article.
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Foreign acquisition and firm performance in sub-Saharan Africa: Empirical evidence from Ghana South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-10-23 Paul Wabiga, Neil Rankin
In this paper, we examine the effect of foreign acquisition on numerous performance outcomes of hitherto indigenously owned firms. We use a 12-year (1991–2002) panel data set of manufacturing firms in Ghana. Taking merit of the availability of feasible preacquisition covariates, we utilise both regression and matching methods with difference-in-differences techniques to handle possible endogeneity
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Sub-Saharan Africa's rising public debt stock: Is there a cause for concern? South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-10-19 Olumide Olusegun Olaoye, Phillip A. Olomola
The study investigated public debt sustainability in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) by testing the reaction of the primary balance to positive and negative shocks in public debts in a panel of 45 SSA countries. The study adopts the innovative nonlinear fiscal reaction function and the dynamic panel threshold model to account for the potential asymmetric phenomenon in the public debt series. In line with
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South Africa's titanium industrial policy: A product space perspective South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-09-26 Karolien De Bruyne, Wouter Bam, Denis Engelbrecht
South Africa is a globally significant player in the titanium raw mineral production industry but does not play a large role in its downstream mineral processing. Since downstream activities generate much higher value added, the government has sought to support the end-to-end titanium value chain to capture more value from raw titanium before export through ‘beneficiation’-related policies. This paper
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Can reconstruction programmes improve political perceptions in conflict contexts? Evidence from eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-09-14 Alexander De Juan, Carlo Koos, Miquel Pellicer, Eva Wegner
Postconflict reconstruction programmes often aim to improve state–society relations but fail to spell out the underlying process. We specify a mechanism that links aid programmes through (1) short-term and (2) medium-term improvements in basic services and (3) subjective progress to (4) perceptions of the state and spell four conditions (quality, sustainability, magnitude and attribution to the state)
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Issue Information South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-09-11
No abstract is available for this article.
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Resource mobilisation, institution and inclusive growth in Africa: Evidence from spatial analysis South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Opeoluwa Adeniyi Adeosun, Olumide S. Ayodele, Mosab I. Tabash, Suhaib Anagreh
This study accommodates spatial effects in the nexus between tax resource mobilisation (TRM) institutions and inclusive growth using panel data from 48 African countries. By adopting the spatial Durbin-fixed effect model, the study shows that spatial dependence and interaction matter when modelling TRM, institutions and inclusive growth relationships. It is also explicit that various disaggregated
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The impact of capital goods prices on Africa's economic performance South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-09-07 B. Ben Moummad, E. Ezzahid, A. Zoglat
Over the last four decades, the relative price of investment goods in Africa has gone through a relatively large decrease, resulting in a steady convergence towards the levels recorded in high-income countries. This fact begs the following question: To what extent might the relative price decrease be a driving force behind the economic performance of this continent? The paper addresses this question
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Identifying steady-state growth and inflation in the South African economy, 1960–2020 South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-08-12 Johannes W. Fedderke
This paper employs a simple but general representation of an economy, in order to derive mutually consistent estimates of steady-state growth and inflation for South Africa over the period from 1960Q1 through to 2020Q2, as well as the implied “gaps” between actual growth and inflation and their steady-state values. Analysis is under both closed and open economy frameworks. Moreover, the full sample
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Electricity outages and residential fires: Evidence from Cape Town, South Africa South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-08-10 Kerianne Lawson
At the end of 2014, South Africa was unexpectedly required to implement load shedding, which is electricity blackouts aimed at relieving strain on the electrical grid. Soon after, it was revealed that the nationally owned power company, Eskom, had been neglecting infrastructure maintenance and that the people should expect load shedding to continue for many more years. The article considers the prevalence
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Inflationary effects of oil price and exchange rate shocks in South Africa: Evidence from time-varying pass-through coefficients South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-07-20 Coşkun Akdeniz, Abdurrahman Nazif Çatık, Esra Ballı
This paper estimates the exchange rate and oil price pass-through to South African domestic prices (ERPT and OPPT, respectively). This study adopts a novel approach to compute pass-through coefficients along the pricing channel using the time-varying responses of the time-varying parameter (TVP)-VAR model. Our findings show that both ERPT and OPPT are incomplete, despite varying responses to local
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Identifying supply and demand shocks in the South African Economy, 1960–2020 South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-07-16 Johannes W. Fedderke
This paper addresses the identification of supply and demand shocks in the South African economy over the 1960–2020 period, the relative importance of the two types of shock to fluctuations of growth and inflation from their steady-state values, as well as the potential impact of the two types of shocks on the steady-state growth and inflation values. Crucially, the paper examines the significance
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Issue Information South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-06-08
No abstract is available for this article.
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Time, health service utilisation and health status in Africa: Evidence from six countries South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-06-10 Germano Mwabu
The debate on mechanisms for health-care financing in sub-Saharan Africa since the pre-independence days has focused on roles of markets and governments in mobilising resources to finance health services, with little or no awareness of the role played by the household time allocations across everyday tasks. The paper first examines the response of health service utilisation to monetary prices of care
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Reweighting the OHS and GHS to improve data quality: Representativeness, household counts, and small households South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-05-23 Amy Thornton, Martin Wittenberg
The October Household Surveys (OHS) (1994–1999) and the General Household Surveys (GHS) (2002–present) collected by StatsSA comprise South Africa's only nationally representative time series with information on both people and households for (almost) every year of the post-apartheid period. However, the quality of these data has been compromised by how the survey weights have been calibrated. We document
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Evaluating the economic well-being in the context of Africa South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-04-26 Comlanvi Martin Konou, Edwin Clifford Mensah
Economists rely on the gross domestic product (GDP) to assess the economic performance of a country. This paper, however, argues that in Africa, the GDP alone cannot be used as a sufficient macroeconomic indicator in accounting for poverty rates and the overall health of the economy. Existing alternatives to GDP also fail to account adequately for relevant factors that are vital in determining the
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Determinants of attrition between Waves 1 and 2 of South Africa's National Income Dynamics Study – Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (NIDS-CRAM) South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-04-26 Reza Che Daniels, Kim P. Ingle, Timothy S. L. Brophy
We introduce a new approach to the analysis of attrition in South African longitudinal surveys by supplementing the public-use data with paradata about the survey process and interview experience. The number of successfully interviewed respondents reduced from 7,073 in Wave 1 of NIDS-CRAM to 5,676 in Wave 2—a level of attrition of almost 20%. We fit probit regression models to predict the determinants
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Do tax administration reforms improve tax revenue performance in Togo? Empirical insights from experimental approaches South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-04-02 Nimonka Bayale, Pouwemdéou Tchila, Jacques-Patrick Arnold Yao, Honoré Tenakoua
Tax administration reforms are often motivated by their potential to improve tax revenue mobilisation. However, their actual impacts are difficult to quantify. Using cross-country panel data over the period 1990–2018, this paper analyses the impact of the 2012 tax administration reform on tax revenue performance in Togo. The estimation procedures that we follow are the synthetic control method (SCM)
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Tax revenue effort and aid in fragile states: The case of Comoros South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-03-29 Jose L. Diaz-Sanchez, Abrams M. E. Tagem, Joana Mota
This paper assesses the impact of aid on tax revenue effort in the context of a fragile state, focusing on Comoros. The paper estimates a fiscal response model within a cointegrated vector autoregressive framework with annual data for Comoros's post-independence period (1984–2017). Results suggest that grants and tax revenue had a significant negative relationship in the long run that remained stable
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Offshoring within South African manufacturing firms: An analysis of the labour market effects South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-03-23 Anmar Pretorius, Carli Bezuidenhout, Marianne Matthee, Derick Blaauw
South Africa's manufacturing sector experiences declining growth and labour demand, and increased imports of intermediate goods. The paper investigates the influence of offshoring on employment and wages for capital- and labour-intensive industries and skilled and unskilled workers, using firm- and employer–employee-level data. Unlike findings in developed countries, offshoring generally lowers employment
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Issue Information South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-03-17
No abstract is available for this article.
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Revisiting the accuracy of inflation forecasts in Nigeria: The oil price–exchange rate–asymmetry perspectives1 South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-02-21 Kazeem O. Isah, Abdulkader C. Mahomedy, Elias A. Udeaja, Ojo J. Adelakun, Yusuf Yakubu, Danmecca Musa
Motivated by the distinctive paradoxical nature of the Nigerian economy as the only OPEC oil-exporting economy that yet depends heavily on the importation of gasoline, we are compelled to re-examine the accuracy of the oil-based augmented Philips curve model in the predictability of inflation. Using quarterly data from 1970 to 2020, we investigate whether extending the oil price-based augmented Phillips
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Export margins and survival: A firm-level analysis using Kenyan data South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-02-17 Kemal Türkcan, Socrates Majune Kraido, Eliud Moyi
This study uses annual customs transaction data (HS six-digit) for the period 2006–2018 to analyse the impact of average tariffs on the export sales, margins and survival of firms in Kenya. Results from the fixed-effects regression model reveal that a 1% increase in tariffs reduces exports by 0.181% and the intensive margin by 0.183% but does not affect the extensive margin. Meanwhile, the cloglog
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Issue Information South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2021-12-14
No abstract is available for this article.
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Snakes and ladders and loaded dice: Poverty dynamics and inequality in South Africa between 2008 and 2017 South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-02-07 Simone Schotte, Rocco Zizzamia, Murray Leibbrandt
Longitudinal surveys allow us to understand how markers of (dis)advantage determine present material welfare and economic upward or downward mobility over time. In this paper, we use five waves of panel data to empirically assess the extent and dynamics of poverty in South Africa between 2008 and 2017. Investigating the correlates of poverty entries and exits, we analyse how multidimensional inequalities
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An analysis of the impact of technological innovation on productivity in South African manufacturing firms using direct measures of innovation South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-01-27 Amy Kahn, Moses Sithole, Yasser Buchana
While manufacturing is regarded as important for economic growth, there is evidence that productivity in the South African manufacturing sector has been relatively low compared to international standards. As the international literature shows a positive correlation between innovation and productivity, it is pertinent to investigate the role that innovation plays in this sector. South Africa is lagging
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Willingness to pay for COVID-19 test and vaccine in South Africa and Ghana: A contingent valuation study South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2022-01-10 Rebecca Nana Yaa Ayifah, Emmanuel Ayifah
Although from a public health perspective, governments are expected to finance the cost of testing and vaccination against the COVID-19 pandemic, most African countries do not have the resources to do these. Individuals' willingness to pay (WTP) for COVID-19 testing and vaccination is thus crucial. We employ the Contingent Valuation Method to assess WTP for COVID-19 testing and vaccine and also investigate
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On the aggregate effects of global uncertainty: Evidence from an emerging economy South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2021-12-07 Johnson Worlanyo Ahiadorme
This paper empirically examines the aggregate effects of global uncertainty using monthly South African data. The empirical analysis is implemented in the context of vector autoregressions (VAR), augmented with various proxies for economic and financial indicators. The evidence shows that global uncertainty shocks are a significant source of economic fluctuations—they are estimated to significantly
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Grit, motivation and university grades South African Journal of Economics (IF 2.136) Pub Date : 2021-11-03 Michelle Pleace, Nicky Nicholls
Many South African university students either do not complete their degrees or take a prolonged time to meet the minimum degree requirements, with significant cost implications. Identifying malleable drivers of academic success is an important starting point in designing policies and programmes to improve student outcomes. To this end, we assess grit and intrinsic motivation as possible predictors