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Introduction The South African constitution includes a number of socioeconomic rights, such as the right to education and access to housing, food, and healthcare. Nevertheless, the constitution qualifies some of the socioeconomic rights by the...
November 2023
Macro-fiscal analysis
Working paper
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. In this...
May 2020
Labour market and inequality
Working paper
Service industries are increasingly important in international trade and offer additional paths to economic development. There are many opportunities to expand trade in services between South Africa and other African countries. Improvements in urban planning...
August 2020
Phase 1 regional growth
Working paper
Stunted growth in early life has serious implications for children and is a well-established constraint to productivity, life expectancy, and cognitive development. This paper evaluates the relative contributions of household resources and public service delivery...
November 2020
Labour market and inequality
Working paper
Climate change poses a serious threat to many countries, particularly to developing countries, which often have large sections of the population without resources to adapt to changes in their environment. One of the key ways...
February 2021
Climate and energy
Working paper
This paper seeks to synthesize a wide variety of work assessing the future of VRE and their potential for revolutionizing electricity generation, particularly in developing countries. As VRE technology matures and costs fall, focus shifts...
April 2018
Climate and energy
News
Phasing out coal in the power sector by 2040 would allow SA to fulfil its commitment to the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to well below 2° C without significant impact on the economy...
26 March, 2019
Climate and energy
Working paper
We study the role of trade credit in enhancing the resilience of financially constrained firms from 2010 to 2017. Implicit borrowing in trade finance allows financially constrained firms to bridge the financing gap, expand employment...
May 2021
Enterprise development
Working paper
This paper uses administrative tax data in South Africa to answer questions about which types of firms employ relatively large numbers of young people. The policy objective of this exercise is to use these insights...
August 2018
Enterprise development
News
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...
March 2020
Working paper
Effective competition in the Southern and East African regions requires independent rivals competing across borders and within domestic markets through innovation and effort, investment, product quality, and prices. To understand the constraints to more dynamic...
September 2021
Phase 1 regional growth
Working paper
The paper examines the incidence and employment impacts of the Employment Tax Incentive, a South African wage subsidy system that is targeted at the employers of low-wage youth. The paper uses a triple differences strategy...
March, 2019
Public revenue
In the media
Murray Leibbrandt, Professor of Economics at the University of Cape Town and a Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow at UNU-WIDER, published an article in New Frame this week. Murray argues that it is time to confront...
May 2021
Technical note
The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic and the response by the South African government was consistent with global trends and prompted unprecedented public procurement. Government responses included the application of a staged lockdown as well...
December 2021
Working paper
Understanding wealth inequality has unique significance in South Africa. The co-existence of extreme poverty and extreme wealth is starkly visible. Apartheid-era inequality has persisted despite more than 20 years of democracy. Much of the research...
March, 2019
Labour market and inequality
Technical workshop
4 Apr 2018 / 10:00
to
17:00
Climate and energy
On 4 April, a workshop centring on the main principles of macroeconomies takes place at the National Treasury of South Africa. The event focuses on current, international discussions on modern macroeconomic models, including their strengths...