Completed research

Extractive industries form an important part of the economy for many developing countries, but their impact on growth and welfare remains understudied. With global efforts to transition to net-zero carbon emissions in the coming decades...

We update Kreuser and Newman’s (2018) total factor productivity estimates for the South African manufacturing sector using administrative data from 2009–17. We use standard implementations of the Ackerberg et al. (2015) and Wooldridge (2009) productivity...

An often-neglected potential negative consequence of tariffs is the impact they may have on the misallocation of factor inputs. Trade protection can provide space for domestic firms to increase prices and mark-ups, allowing low-productivity firms...

This paper presents version 4.0 of the CIT-IRP5 firm-level panel dataset. Version 4.0 is the latest edition of the firm-level component of the combined administrative data using sources from the South African Revenue Service. We...

How does centralized bargaining affect the broader wage structure? And what does this tell us about the (non-)competitive dynamics of such labour markets? I study large contracted wage increases negotiated by centralized bargaining councils in...

This paper analyses the permanent and temporary differences of South African firms for the period covered in the SARS-NT panel. The analysis provides valuable information about the differences between accounting profits and the taxable income...

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...

We present new evidence on the effects of South Africa’s Employment Tax Incentive (ETI), a hiring and employment wage subsidy aimed at reducing youth unemployment. We show that attempts to estimate firm-level treatment effects via...

In this paper we explore South Africa’s personal income tax system using two microsimulation models. The first, SAMOD, simulates personal income tax and social benefits using a dataset derived from the nationally representative National Income...

There is a large literature on the minimum wage focused on directly exposed firms and geographies. This paper provides new evidence that the minimum wage has significant spillover effects on firms exposed to the minimum...

Overall income inequality in South Africa is very high, and inequality generated in the labour market is a key driver of inequality. In this paper, I use the Post-Apartheid Labour Market Series, the General Household...

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...

This paper uses firm-level data and a news-based measure of economic policy uncertainty to provide empirical evidence that economic policy uncertainty has a negative impact on firm-level investment in South Africa.

In 2016, the South African government introduced a comprehensive reform to simplify and harmonize the pension system in order to incentivize pension savings and increase the fairness of the retirement system. Using administrative tax micro-data...

The identification of foreign firms and South African multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the CIT-IRP5 panel has proved to be a challenge for many researchers. The CIT-IRP5 panel contains variables indicating different thresholds that determine foreign...

This paper examines the relationship between monetary policy and wealth inequality in South Africa. We employed a unique database of tax administrative data which allowed us to account for individual heterogeneity. These tax data span...