Regional integration in Africa is underway but progress requires that the gains are widely spread. South Africa’s huge regional trade surplus in manufactured goods is leading to protectionist pressures in neighbouring countries. Agro-processing is a...

Globally, corporate cash holdings have risen since the 1980s. In South Africa, some commentators have accused corporations of engaging in an ‘investment strike’, while others see corporate liquidity as a precaution against systemic uncertainty. We...

Download the full Request for Research Proposals The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), together with the National Treasury of South Africa, is requesting research proposals under the second phase of...

The paper examines the underlying constraints impacting micro-enterprise growth within South African townships. The understanding broadly provides a finer and more granular understanding of the microeconomic constraints to economic growth and employment generation in South...

Download the full Request for Research Proposals The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), together with the National Treasury of South Africa, is requesting research proposals under the second phase of...

After the South African democratic transition, substantial advances were made in the provision of water services to households which had previously not been supplied. However, more recently, the pace of progress has slowed, and technical...

Up-to-date, nationally representative household income/expenditure data are crucial to estimating poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic and to policy-making more broadly, but South Africa lacks such data. We present new pandemic poverty estimates, simulating incomes in...

Job retention schemes have been one of the many policy tools used to curb the effects of a lockdown and the COVID-19 crisis. The system works by reducing labour costs which could prevent or reduce...

Countries need data and evidence to create, amend, and evaluate policy. South Africa has been at the vanguard of data collection in sub-Saharan Africa with strong and long-standing institutions collecting data for research purposes. Making...

South Africa runs a large, persistent primary fiscal deficit and the interest rate on government debt, r, is greater than the economic growth rate, g (see Figure 1). Mathematically, these conditions mean sovereign debt accumulates...

South Africa runs a primary fiscal deficit and the long-term interest rate on government borrowing, r, is greater than the long-term economic growth rate, g. Without intervention, debt will continue to rise until there is...

The launch of SA-TIED Phase II was a major success, garnering widespread media attention. Bongani Bingwa, the host of Breakfast 702, interviewed Antony Phillipson, High Commissioner of the UK to South Africa, ahead of yesterday’s...

Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana, has lauded the impact of SA-TIED Phase I in supporting evidence-based policy-making to help South Africa (SA) address some of its most pressing economic problems. He cited the example of...

Members of the media are cordially invited to the launch of Phase II of the SA-TIED programme, which will take the form of a panel discussion under the topic - the challenge of economic inclusion...