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Working paper
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
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
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
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
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
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
Working paper
The main goal of this study—and its potential to add to the policy debate—is to cast light on the network of voices that influence the narrative about inflation and monetary policy in South Africa. To...
SEPTEMBER 2023
Macro-fiscal analysis
Working paper
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
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
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 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
Working paper
Globally, corporate cash holdings have risen since the 1980s. In South Africa, some commentators have accused corporations of engaging in an ‘investment strike’, while others see corporate liquidity as a precaution against systemic uncertainty. We...
August 2022
Enterprise development
Working paper
The paper examines the underlying constraints impacting micro-enterprise growth within South African townships. The understanding broadly provides a finer and more granular understanding of the microeconomic constraints to economic growth and employment generation in South...
August 2022
Labour market and inequality
Working paper
Up-to-date, nationally representative household income/expenditure data are crucial to estimating poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic and to policy-making more broadly, but South Africa lacks such data. We present new pandemic poverty estimates, simulating incomes in...
July 2022
Macro-fiscal analysis
Working paper
South Africa runs a primary fiscal deficit and the long-term interest rate on government borrowing, is greater than the long-term economic growth rate, Without intervention, debt will continue to rise until there is a disorderly...
June 2022
Macro-fiscal analysis
Working paper
This paper reviews South Africa’s monetary policy since 2007 and makes recommendations towards improving the inflation-targeting framework currently in place. Following a surge in inflation into double digits in 2007/08, the South African Reserve Bank...
March 2022
Macro-fiscal analysis