Filter by...
Reset all
Publications (62)
Blog
The South African rail freight sector is currently facing a crisis of operational efficiency, which is having a significant economic impact. In the bulk mineral corridors, reduced rail capacity has prevented South Africa from benefiting from recent mineral price booms. The general freight rail...
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– South Africa’s Kuznetsian tension
From the book:
The Developer’s Dilemma
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from South African tax administrative and products data
Enterprise development, especially expansion into export markets, is essential to create employment and unlock growth potential in many economies, including in sub-Saharan Africa. However, both firm and product survival (mainly in the export market) is not sufficiently documented to inform business...
– Natural gas as a key
Plastics are universal and integrated into different sectors of the economy. Industrial policy requires countries to look at moving up the value chain and producing progressively more sophisticated products to contribute to improved economic development. The input materials that are used for...
Working Paper
pdf
– The case of Zambia and South Africa
The successful use of special economic zones as economic tools for export-led industrial development in East Asia propelled a wave of similar initiatives across Africa. In Southern Africa, Zambia and South Africa instituted special economic zones in their respective legal and institutional...
Working Paper
pdf
This paper adds quantitative analysis to the study by Crompton et al. (2020), in which various alternative regulatory arrangements regarding the petrol price in South Africa were explored. We use a multi-sector dynamic computable general equilibrium model for South Africa to conduct our economic...
Working Paper
pdf
Plastics are ubiquitous across the region and play an important role in multiple industries. Most plastic products are based on a value chain that is grounded in petroleum refining, posing an environmental challenge. Plastic manufacturing in South Africa suffers from the high cost of polymers as...
Working Paper
pdf
– Is it meeting its intended objectives?
The South African liquid fuels industry is a significant part of the economy. Historically, government policy focused on import substitution industrialization to support industry margins. This approach is called into question by the 2006 shift from net exports to imports and by inflated downstream...
Special economic zones (SEZ) in Africa are generally regarded as underperforming relative to their peers in the rest of the world. To explain this underperformance and to support success in the future it is important to analyse the key features and what is lacking in the design of African special...
– Can foreign direct investment help South Africa increase the complexity of its exports?
Since the end of apartheid, South Africa’s economic challenges have disrupted efforts to establish a society of inclusive growth and prosperity. Understanding how South Africa can break the pattern of sluggish growth, high unemployment, inequality and poverty is a pressing policy issue. The overall...
Working Paper
pdf
– The cases of Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe
The objective of this research is to assess the extent to which export processing zones in Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe integrate the Sustainable Development Goals in their implementation and operations. We focused on four Sustainable Development Goals—gender equality, decent work...
Working Paper
pdf
– Is success influenced by design attributes?
Special economic zones (SEZs) in Africa are generally regarded as underperforming relative to their peers in the rest of the world. This study focuses on the design features of the SEZ in Africa that may help explain this underperformance. Literature was reviewed to identify the key design...
Working Paper
pdf
This paper evaluates structural change, inequality dynamics, and industrial policy in South Africa between 1960 and the present day. We find that South Africa experienced growth-enhancing structural transformation until the early 1970s, before entering a period of premature deindustrialization...
Working Paper
pdf
Countries’ economic complexity, and the associated diversification and sophistication of their exports, is a key determinant of economic growth. Understanding how South African firms learn to export more sophisticated products is, therefore, an important policy issue. Using administrative data...
Working Paper
pdf
– Dead end or steppingstone?
Despite rapid economic growth in recent decades, informality remains a persistent phenomenon in the labour markets of many low- and middle-income countries. A key issue in this regard concerns the extent to which informality itself is a persistent state. Using panel data from Ghana, South Africa...
– Are they persistently high-growth firms?
The analysis of firm growth has been a topic of consistent economic interest as a growing body of literature has lent support to the possibility that the majority of growth and new employment creation is the result of a small sub-sector of high-growth firms (HGFs). While this has been demonstrated...
Working Paper
pdf
We examine the extent to which two of Africa’s leading gold mining economies, Ghana and Tanzania, have adopted transformative local procurement policies to enhance backward linkages from the minerals sector. We assess the impact that evolving legislation in the gold industry has had on...
– Can South African firms compete with Chinese imports?
China’s growing edge in export manufacturing has caused concern for low-income and middle-income countries seeking to develop robust manufacturing sectors. China’s recent transition from an exporter of lower-tech goods, such as garments, to more advanced products, such as components for high-tech...
Working Paper
pdf
– A case study of the maize-milling machinery value chain in South Africa and Zambia
This working paper is the fourth in a series that forms part of the project ‘Southern Africa – Towards Inclusive Economic Development’, a three-year partnership between UNU-WIDER and the South African government aimed at generating a better understanding of regional value chains and supporting...
Working Paper
pdf
– Chinese import penetration and the performances of manufacturing firms in South Africa
Using firm-level tax administrative data from 2010 to 2017, we study the impact of Chinese import penetration on the performances of manufacturing firms in South Africa, and whether firms investing in capabilities development are more resilient to such competitive pressure. Specifically, by...
Working Paper
pdf
Supermarkets are strong catalysts to stimulate the growth and development of producers and suppliers of processed food and manufactured products in Southern Africa. This paper assesses the role of supermarkets and governments in developing supplier capabilities through supplier development...
Working Paper
pdf
– What can be learnt from new administrative data?
The South African economy is generally understood to be characterised by high levels of product market concentration and high firm markups. This paper reviews the existing literature and discusses what can be learnt from new administrative firm-level panel data. I present new evidence on South...
Working Paper
pdf
In recent decades, the impact of South African foreign direct investment in Africa has been captured by research and policy. This paper investigates linkages and spillover effects of South African foreign direct investment in Botswana and Kenya. The study uses primary data to investigate qualitative...
Working Paper
pdf
– Looking back with data
This paper provides a retrospective assessment of the effects of trade policies on South African manufacturing since the transition to democracy, examining the differences and commonalities in the views of economists in favour of and against an acceleration of trade liberalization. Data from the...
Working Paper
pdf
The growth of firms has been shown to have a meaningful impact on the health of firms and the economy in general. As the body of literature dedicated to understanding high-growth firms has expanded, an interest in the persistence of growth has become even more relevant. This is because persistence...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Corporate strategies, investments and agro-industrial policies
Part of Journal Special Issue
Regional Growth Opportunities
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Regional Growth Opportunities
– Regional integration in southern Africa through supermarkets
Walk into any supermarket and you will find a mix of products to stock the kitchen. It’s easy to assume that many of the goods on offer are sourced locally and from nearby countries. In the region of southern Africa, however, imported goods are often shipped from another continent instead of...
Working Paper
pdf
– The case of the animal feed to poultry value chain
This paper considers findings of studies analysing the development of a regional animal feed to poultry value chain in southern Africa (Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe). The southern African regional poultry value chain is underdeveloped, although important changes include investments by...
Working Paper
pdf
– A comparison of findings from South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe
Since the early 2000s, there has been rapid growth in the number and spread of supermarkets in southern Africa. This paper is a synthesis of key findings of studies undertaken in Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe on the expansion of supermarkets and the impact this has had on suppliers...
Blog
The white-painted cluster of traditional style buildings might suggest that this was a farm on the South African veldt. Not so however—it was Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) Annual Forum held on 14-15 July 2015 at the University of Witwatersrand, a high-level gathering of economists...
Working Paper
pdf
– The Case of South Africa
South Africa has exhibited tepid economic growth over the past twenty years as well as high levels of income inequality characteristic of a middle income country growth trap. This paper compares and contrasts South Africa’s growth trap relative to middle-income peer economies. In addition, we study...
Displaying 32 of 62 results