3-day training workshop including short lectures and practical computer based training
In trying to limit the spread of COVID-19, policymakers globally have the difficult task of balancing the positive health effects of lockdowns against their economic costs, particularly the burdens lockdowns impose on low-income and food-insecure households.
There is a demand for quick studies evaluating the economic impact of the lockdowns used by many governments to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. Multiplier analysis is an appropriate method for examining the impacts of the lockdowns, particularly in the short run when both prices and technology are relatively fixed.
Young people are at the forefront of efforts to bring about change in society. They are passionate about and committed to actions which will improve their livelihoods and those of future generations in Africa.
For any action to be effective and sustainable it must be backed by evidence-based research and effective policies.
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, industry, and climate action.
The IRP5 and IT3(a) tax data from the South African Revenue Service have been made available to researchers through a joint project between the South African Revenue Service, the National Treasury, and UNU-WIDER.
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.
The purpose of this research is to investigate whether transport accessibility influences the employment duration of individuals in South Africa.
Despite South Africa’s need for inclusive economic growth, we find that the income trajectories of the rich continue to diverge from the rest of the income distribution.
Analysis of World Bank data ranging from 1990–2017 indicates that increases in global oil prices would have negative effects on the economic growth of Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and especially Mauritius. Given the high reliance of Southern African countries on crude oil imports, barrel price increases in the global market can significantly...
This paper reports ‘first pass’ estimates of the costs of the lock-down implemented by the South African government beginning on 27 March 2020. It also presents a series of recovery scenarios. Four channels by which a lockdown and other efforts are expected to influence economic activity are distinguished. In total, these lockdown measures have...
Without large changes in consumption as well as sharp reductions of food waste and post-harvest losses, agricultural production must grow to meet future food demands. The variety of concepts and policies relating to yield increases fail to integrate an important constituent of production and human nutrition – namely biodiversity. We here...
The Employment Equity Act No. 55 of 1998 was introduced by the South African government to address the legacy of apartheid and ensure equitable representation of black people and women in the South African labour market. Although the impacts of the Act are highly controversial, its widespread adoption among firms opens up questions on its...
This paper presents new evidence on the employment effects of a large increase in agricultural minimum wages in South Africa using anonymized tax data. We add to the minimum wage literature by differentiating employment effects resulting from the destruction of existing jobs and from the slower creation of new jobs. Using data from tax years...
Nowadays, tax depreciation allowances are used less as instruments of macroeconomic stabilization and more as long-term measures to stimulate investment. This paper tabulates the types of accelerated depreciation allowances in South Africa and calculates the magnitude of these benefits in addition to standard across-the-board accounting...
This paper estimates the distribution of personal wealth in South Africa by combining tax microdata, household surveys, and macroeconomic balance sheet statistics. We systematically compare estimates of the wealth distribution obtained by direct measurement of net worth, rescaling of reported wealth to balance sheet totals, and capitalization...
Globally, women are under-represented in the field of economics. Only a third of all academic research staff in the field of economics in Europe are women. In the US the share is even lower.
The Southern Africa – Towards Inclusive Economic Development (SA-TIED) programme will continue delivering on our mandates during the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Some areas of programme operations however will be subject to temporary disruption during the pandemic – updates will be provided on our website and social media....
We study the relationship between product market competition and labour market outcomes in South Africa. We combine firm-level data from tax records with individual-level data from the labour force survey. We estimate markups across sectors, and derive a measure of employment concentration in high-markup sectors across South African district...
Some entry barriers in agricultural and agro-processing value chains, particularly for smallholder farmers and small/medium-sized processors, can be overcome with innovation and technology adoption. Technologies and innovation in these sectors have been both radical and incremental, ranging widely through biotechnology; production technologies...
Regional integration in Africa is underway but ongoing progress requires that the gains are widely spread. South Africa’s huge regional trade surplus in manufactured goods is already leading to protectionist pressures in neighbouring countries. Agro-processing is a large sector, which is widely regarded as having significant potential, but the...
For decades cheaper and easily available fossil fuels have underpinned the energy system of South Africa and inhibited the potential for achieving a sustainable low carbon economy. Favourable developments in renewable energy technologies and falling prices provide an opportunity for the country to reduce its emissions significantly without...
This study presents results from a large ensemble of projected changes in seasonal precipitation and near-surface air temperature changes for the nation of South Africa. The ensemble is based on a combination of pattern-change responses derived from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP-5) climate models along with the...
This paper investigates the validity of household survey data published by Statistics South Africa since 1993 and later integrated into the Post-Apartheid Labour Market Series (PALMS). A series of statistical adjustments are proposed, compared, and applied to primary data with the purpose of generating time-comparable, unbiased estimates, and...
This paper proposes an alternative method for modelling long term changes in household consumption in computable general equilibrium models. The analysis is applied to the case of South Africa and focuses on the change in income related lifestyle choices on energy demand and composition. A comparison of adjusting household consumption share (...
This paper reviews land reform in six emerging market economies with some similarities to South Africa, and in sub-Saharan African countries, which share a similar colonial history. While care needs to be taken when trying to transplant policies that have worked in other countries, the paper suggests a number of broad lessons. Land reform is a...
We consider the interplay of climate change impacts, global mitigation policies, and the economic interests of developing countries to 2050. Focusing on Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia, we employ a structural approach to biophysical and economic modeling that incorporates climate uncertainty and allows for rigorous comparison of climate,...
This paper seeks to address the following questions: (a) How productive is South Africa’s agricultural sector? (b) How does it compare to other countries in terms of productivity? The approach taken uses neoclassical growth accounting in defining total factor productivity (TFP) growth as the ratio of output and input growth. There are three...
The recent National Health Insurance White Paper proposes redirection of medical tax credits revenue towards the financing of the national health insurance. This raises critical questions about the impact on affordability for the poor as well as fundamental legal implications. The 2012 tax reforms which saw the move from deductions to credits...
The elasticity of taxable income is a key tax policy parameter that plays an important role in the formulation of tax and transfer policy. This paper extends work by Kemp (2019) by using a new panel of individual tax returns and the phenomenon of ‘bracket creep’ to produce updated estimates of the elasticity of taxable income for South Africa....