Working paper
Jacomien Van der Merwe and Tom de Jong
Addressing unemployment and income inequalities in transport and land-use policies is important, particularly in South Africa, which is currently experiencing one of the highest unemployment rates and income inequality in the world. This research investigates...
December 2023
Labour market and inequality
Working paper
Gemma Wright, Katrin Gasior, Joonas Ollonqvist, Wynnona Steyn, Winile Ngobeni, Helen Barnes, Michael Noble, David McLennan, Jukka Pirttilä, and Ada Jansen
In this paper we explore options for augmenting South Africa’s personal income tax revenue using two microsimulation models: PITMOD simulates the personal income tax system and is underpinned by a dataset comprising a full extract...
December 2023
Public revenue
Report
A partnership between the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), National Treasury’s (NT) SA TIED research projects, the National Planning Commission (NPC), and the Presidential Climate Commission (PCC) was formed to assess what level of...
December 2023
Climate and energy
Working paper
Ada Jansen, Winile Ngobeni, and Wynnona Steyn
South Africa has a progressive broad-based personal income tax system with relatively few tax expenditures. The two most important are the medical contribution plus additional tax credits for medical expenses, and the deductions allowed for...
November 2023
Public revenue
Working paper
Joshua Budlender and Ihsaan Bassier
Faced with more favourable demand conditions, many firms raise wages. However, we show that firms with labour market power, lower productivity, and binding wage floors will absorb these positive revenue productivity shocks as excess profits...
November 2023
Enterprise development
Working paper
Shakeba Foster
This paper investigates the role of firm characteristics in driving wage inequality and firm wage premia in the South African labour market. The Abowd, Kramarz, and Margolis (AKM) and Kline, Saggio, and Sølvsten (KSS) regression-based...
October 2023
Labour market and inequality
Working paper
Philippe Burger
The South African constitution is considered progressive and transformative in intention due to its inclusion of socioeconomic rights, such as the right to education, land, food, and healthcare. However, some of these rights are qualified...
October 2023
Macro-fiscal analysis
Working paper
Michelle Pleace, Matthew Clance and Nicky Nicholls
The attainment of financial independence by women holds significant importance for women’s empowerment and has implications for the increasing prevalence of female-headed households in the country. Previous estimates of the gender wage gap in South...
October 2023
Labour market and inequality
Working paper
Kate Orkin, Maya Goldman, Brynde Kreft, Ntuthuko Hlela, Jessica Nicklin, Ingrid Woolard, and Murray Leibbrandt
The special COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress grant (hereafter ‘SRD’) is an excellent investment of government spending because it reduces poverty and can increase job search. The SRD in its current form has led to...
OCTOBER 2023
Labour market and inequality
Journal article
Marlies Piek, Dieter von Fintel, Johann Kirsten
Marlies Piek , Dieter von Fintel , Johann Kirsten This paper is the first to provide estimates of how minimum wages affect worker flows and employment growth rates in an employment scarce developing country context...
SEPTEMBER 2023
Working paper
Gideon du Rand, Hylton Hollander, and Dawie van Lill
A critical requirement for efficient fiscal policy is a reliable understanding of its impact on the aggregate economy for different policy instruments and under different economic conditions. Indeed, there is strong evidence to suggest that...
AUGUST 2023
Macro-fiscal analysis
Working paper
Krige Siebrits and Estian Calitz
This paper discusses the rationale and options for a fiscal anchor for South Africa and its potential for restoring and maintaining fiscal sustainability. It argues that a well designed fiscal anchor can be useful in...
AUGUST 2023
Macro-fiscal analysis
Working paper
Gideon du Rand, Hylton Hollander, and Dawie van Lill
In this study, we provide a comprehensive estimation of the contemporary Phillips curve relationship in the South African economy using a novel deep learning technique. Our approach incorporates multiple measures of economic slack/tightness and inflation...
June 2023
Macro-fiscal analysis
Working paper
Andrew R. Donaldson
Andrew R. Donaldson March 2023 Tax administration statistics now provide considerably more complete and reliable measures of South African personal income and its distribution than the available household or other survey sources. However, there are...
March 2023
Labour market and inequality