Blog
South Africa faces a dual challenge of limited fiscal space—the need to raise sufficient revenues to finance public services—and high levels of inequality. One possible solution is to raise tax rates on the rich. If...
August 2024
Public revenue
Abstract Despite widespread and growing adoption of industrial policy across the world, sound empirical evidence is still limited and typically skewed towards high-income settings. I propose to fill this gap by examining the automotive industry...
MAY 2024
Abstract In South Africa, only 31.6% of management positions were held by women in 2021 (Statistics South Africa, 2021). For women to have a meaningful say in decision-making on corporate boards, it is crucial to...
Abstract We incorporate a model of frictions into the bunching-based elasticity estimator to rationalize diffuse bunching around kinks and mass above notches in empirical distributions. Model agents draw a sparse set of opportunities from a...
Abstract We use individual-level tax administrative data to estimate income inequality for formal sector income earners in South Africa. The tax data offers better coverage of the top end of the distribution, allowing us to...
Abstract Sin taxes are increasingly being used to discourage the consumption of internality-producing goods. A major concern with sin taxes is that they are regressive. But the behavioral biases they seek to correct may also...
Abstract Urban transport systems are of key importance to the functioning of cities, thedevelopment of urban enterprises, labour market outcomes like job-search costs, andthe ability of cities to generate the productivity gains associated with agglomeration.This...
Abstract The proposed research project aims to analyse spatial wage disparities in the South African economy using new economic geography models. It extends available literature in the field by using the South African Revenue Service...
Abstract South Africa has experienced a consistent increase in urbanisation over the last two decades. Firms locate in cities to reap the agglomeration benefits and individuals seek to maximise their utility by moving to urban...