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
Journal article
Ihsaan Bassier
How important are firms for wage inequality in developing countries where structural unemployment is high? Research focused on contexts close to full employment has suggested a substantial role of firms in labor market inequality...
MARCH 2023
Working paper
Ewa Karwowski, Hanna Szymborska, Keagile Lesame, and Tlhologelo Thoka
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
Report
Sarah Truen
After the South African democratic transition, substantial advances were made in the provision of water services to households which had previously not been supplied. However, more recently, the pace of progress has slowed, and technical...
July 2022
Labour market and inequality
Phase 1 regional growth
Working paper
Ihsaan Bassier, Joshua Budlender, and Maya Goldman
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
Background note
Amina Ebrahim and Sibusiso Gumbi
Job retention schemes have been one of the many policy tools used to curb the effects of a lockdown and the COVID-19 crisis. The system works by reducing labour costs which could prevent or reduce...
June 2022
Background note
Amina Ebrahim and Aalia Cassim
Countries need data and evidence to create, amend, and evaluate policy. South Africa has been at the vanguard of data collection in sub-Saharan Africa with strong and long-standing institutions collecting data for research purposes. Making...
June 2022