Working Paper
Structural transformation, inequality, and inclusive growth in South Africa
This paper evaluates structural change, inequality dynamics, and industrial policy in South Africa between 1960 and the present day. We find that South Africa experienced growth-enhancing structural transformation until the early 1970s, before...
Background Note
COVID-19 and socioeconomic impact in Africa
What has the government of South Africa done with respect to COVID-19 measures of mitigation and suppression? The first COVID-19 positive case was confirmed on 5 March 2020. Just ten days later, South Africa had 61 positive cases and President...
Working Paper
Wage polarization in a high-inequality emerging economy
Earnings growth in South Africa displayed a U-shaped pattern across the earnings percentiles between 2000 and 2015, resembling wage polarization in the industrialized world. We investigate whether the drivers of this example of wage polarization in...
Working Paper
Earnings in the South African Revenue Service IRP5 data
The IRP5 and IT3(a) tax data from the South African Revenue Service have been made available to researchers through a joint project between the South African Revenue Service, the National Treasury, and UNU-WIDER. In this paper, I explain how to use...
Working Paper
A comparative study of export processing zones in the wake of the Sustainable Development Goals
The objective of this research is to assess the extent to which export processing zones in Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe integrate the Sustainable Development Goals in their implementation and operations. We focused on four Sustainable...
Research Brief
Spatial dynamics of firm productivity in South Africa
The design and implementation of industrial policy should be closely linked to spatial considerations. Firm output and productivity are often location-specific, with factors such as the availability of physical infrastructure, proximity to sources...
Working Paper
Tariffs, productivity, and resource misallocation
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 to...
Working Paper
Simulation of options to replace the special COVID-19 Social Relief of Distress grant and close the poverty gap at the food poverty line
We use a fiscal incidence model based on the South African 2014/15 Living Conditions Survey to simulate the poverty reduction impacts of a selection of medium-to-long-term social grant options with the goal of replacing the existing special COVID-19...
Working Paper
Ethnicity is not public service destiny
Millions of South Africans in thousands of demonstrations have protested the unequal allocation of public services. Despite the African National Congress’s promise to reduce the disparities generated by apartheid, the level of public services remains...
Working Paper
The asymmetric impact of economic policy uncertainty on firm-level investment in South Africa
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. Firms’ investment decisions in...
Blog
Technology and supermarket chains can help strengthen southern Africa’s food systems
by
Thando Vilakazi, Namhla Landani
February 2021
Agriculture and agro-processing value chains have been under pressure during the COVID-19 pandemic. This has been particularly marked where they...
Working Paper
The livelihood impacts of COVID-19 in urban South Africa
This paper investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and related policy measures on livelihoods in urban South Africa. Using qualitative research methods, we analyse two rounds of semi-structured phone interviews, conducted between June and...
Blog
Persistent gender roles in South Africa deprive women of leisure time
by
Priyanka Harrichurran
March 2021
In most countries, traditional gender roles within the household are still common due to the prevalence and persistence of patriarchal systems. These...
Technical Note
Identifying foreign firms and South African multinational enterprises
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...
Working Paper
Simulating personal income tax in South Africa using administrative data and survey data
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...
Background Note
Building tax data for research
Introduction: data for development Globally, one of the key factors associated with increasing use of data to inform policy-making has been the increased availability of new administrative data sources. In 2014, the National Treasury of South Africa...
Working Paper
Estimating employment responses to South Africa’s Employment Tax Incentive
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 conditional...
Working Paper
The macroeconomic effect of fiscal policy in South Africa
This paper analyses the macroeconomic effect of legislated personal income tax changes in South Africa over the 1996–2019 period. We identify personal income tax shocks using a narrative approach and incorporate these shocks in a proxySVAR model. Our...
Working Paper
Analysis of the distributional effects of COVID-19 and state-led remedial measures in South Africa
This paper explores the impact of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa on income poverty and inequality in South Africa. Using a static tax–benefit microsimulation model with input datasets that were adjusted to reflect people’s...
Working Paper
Measuring earnings inequality in South Africa using household survey and administrative tax microdata
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 Surveys, and administrative tax...
Working Paper
The impacts of public expenditure innovations on real exchange rate volatility in South Africa
This study investigates the impacts of public expenditure innovations on exchange rate volatility in South Africa using quarterly data for the period 1970–2019. To achieve this objective, a version of the vector autoregressive impulse response model...
Blog
Good intentions falling short – the case of pension-related tax expenditures in South Africa
by
Agustin Redonda
April 2021
Tax benefits to boost contributions into pension funds or pension-related tax expenditures (PTEs) are used widely by governments worldwide to address...
Blog
COVID-19 lays bare Cape Town’s social divide, deepens underlying inequalities
by
Simone Schotte, Rocco Zizzamia
April 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic delivered a devastating economic shock to livelihoods across the world. In Cape Town, it has been toughest on those who had just...
Working Paper
State-dependent fiscal multipliers and financial dynamics
The aim of this paper is to assess South Africa’s fiscal multiplier across different states of the economy, with a focus on the financial accelerator mechanism of fiscal policy shocks, by estimating impulse response functions from both linear and non...
Working Paper
Exporters and global value chain participation
Using the South African Revenue Service and National Treasury firm-level panel data for 2009–17, this paper investigates how global value chain-related trade affects the export performance of manufacturing firms in South Africa. In particular, the...
Research Brief
Are credits or deductions better in public health spending?
The impact of medical deductions and medical credits on income inequality is a subject of discussion in South Africa, as well as in many other countries, raising critical questions about the fairness of the medical tax system and the impact on...
Working Paper
Structural estimates of the South African sacrifice ratio
This paper estimates the output cost of fighting inflation—the sacrifice ratio—for the South African economy using quarterly data spanning the period 1998Q1–2019Q3. To compute the sacrifice ratio, the structural vector autoregressive model developed...
Working Paper
Youth unemployment hysteresis in South Africa
This study simulates the macro-micro economic impacts of the employment policy, focusing on hysteresis in youth unemployment in South Africa. Specifically, we apply a dynamic computable general equilibrium model to calibrate the 2015 South African...
Working Paper
Do fiscal regimes matter for fiscal sustainability in South Africa?
This paper empirically examines South Africa’s fiscal sustainability through a Markov-switching model which utilizes quarterly datasets for the period from 1960 to 2019. The results show that public debt responds positively, demonstrating a...
Working Paper
Identifying structural changes in the exchange rates of South Africa as a regime-switching process
Exchange rate volatility is said to exemplify the economic health of a country. Exchange rate break points (known as structural breaks) have a momentous impact on the macroeconomy of a country. Nonetheless, this country study makes use of both...
Working Paper
The impact on the South African economy of alternative regulatory arrangements in the petroleum sector
This paper adds quantitative analysis to the study by Crompton et al. (2020), in which various alternative regulatory arrangements regarding the petrol price in South Africa were explored. We use a multi-sector dynamic computable general equilibrium...
Research Brief
Technology, tourism, malls, and metros
There is growing recognition around the world that tradable services can play a valuable role in economic development. Africa is no exception, with the need for multiple routes to growth, particularly vis-à-vis the COVID-19 pandemic. Tradable...
Working Paper
The influence of household composition on leisure time in South Africa
This study considers how household composition influences the leisure time of men and women in South Africa, using the South African 2010 Time Use Survey. Studying leisure time is important since the allocation of time outside the market provides...
Blog
Surprise success – moving SA-TIED seminars online makes them more engaging and fruitful
by
Anne Tomi
February 2021
In September 2020, due to the ongoing pandemic, SA-TIED moved its seminar series online. What once took place at the National Treasury in Pretoria...
Technical Note
Exploring the quality of income data in two South African household surveys which underpin SAMOD
This note has set out several data processes that have been undertaken using the income data in dataset(s) that underpin SAMOD. Section 1 describes various data-cleaning steps that were undertaken when preparing the LCS 2014/15 as an underpinning...
Blog
Stunted growth, orphans, and access to sanitation services in South Africa
by
Grace Bridgman
July 2021
Stunted growth in early life has serious implications for cognitive development and is a well-established constraint to individual productivity and...
Working Paper
Distributional changes in the gender wage gap in the post-apartheid South African labour market
This paper investigates the evolution of the gender wage gap in South Africa, using the 1993–2015 Post-Apartheid Labour Market Series data set. The changes in the gap are heterogeneous across the wage distribution. There has been a substantial...
Working Paper
Exploring the network of individuals that influence the media’s inflation message in South Africa
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 that end, this paper first identifies the main...
Working Paper
Investigating inequality trends in Africa
Work done by the African Centre of Excellence for Inequality Research (ACEIR) has documented the many-faceted nature of inequality in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. Conventionally measured inequality ranges from moderate (in Ghana) to extremely high...
Working Paper
An assessment of inequality estimates for the case of South Africa
A substantial amount of research has been conducted examining inequality in South Africa using multiple data sources. We provide an overview of this research in this paper. Furthermore, we use nationally representative survey data to estimate income...
Working Paper
Fiscal anchors and sustainable fiscal policy
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 the current fiscal milieu, but...
Blog
The richer your neighbours, the more you borrow – the case of South Africa
by
Shakeba Foster
April 2023
Research on how income inequality affects borrowing behaviour reignited after the 2008 global recession. One prevailing theory is that rising income...
Working Paper
Macro-financial implications of public debt in South Africa
This paper examines the role of financial frictions in the public debt–growth nexus, documenting that a public debt shock has different macro-financial implications dependent on the state of financial markets in South Africa. A non-linear vector...
Working Paper
Watts happening to work? The labour market effects of South Africa’s electricity crisis
Frequent electricity outages threaten to impede the benefits of expanded access achieved by many developing countries in recent decades. A large literature documents these negative effects, however almost none consider labour market effects. This...
Working Paper
Taxing top incomes in the emerging world
Rising levels of income inequality and tight government budgets have spurred discussions in many developing nations about how to appropriately tax high-income earners. In this paper, we study taxpayer responses to an increase in the top marginal tax...
Working Paper
Surviving in the dark: the mortality effects of reducing rolling blackouts
South Africa frequently experiences rolling blackouts (‘load shedding’) due to shortfalls in electricity generation. This is a common problem across the developing world, and yet the developmental impacts of insufficient and unstable electricity...
Working Paper
Income inequality in South Africa
We use individual-level tax administrative data to estimate personal income inequality among the tax-compliant population in South Africa over the period 2011–21. Our results indicate that inequality of this population rose slightly over the period...
Working Paper
Wage inequality, firm characteristics, and firm wage premia in South Africa
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 decomposition...
Working Paper
The effect of wage subsidies on job retention in a developing country
Wage subsidies served as a dominant labour market policy response around the world to mitigate job losses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, no causal evidence of their effects exists for developing countries.We use unique panel labour...
Working Paper
Ethnic diversity and financial inclusion in post-apartheid South Africa
The ethnic diversity–financial inclusion nexus remains one of the least explored topics in the literature despite global attempts to promote cultural mixing due to its socioeconomic benefits. We contribute to the literature by examining the link...
Blog
The COVID-19 TERS policy saved at least 2 million jobs: But not without some unintended results
About three years have passed since the South African government introduced the COVID-19 Temporary Employer-Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) in response...
Working Paper
Effective corporate tax burden and firm size in South Africa
We investigate the relationship between the corporate income tax burden and firm size in South Africa using a panel dataset from companies’ tax returns. We find that medium-sized companies are experiencing the lowest effective tax rate, while the...
Journal Special Issue
Regional Growth Opportunities
This issue contains seven articles addressing the major changes underway in the integration of economies in southern Africa. This special issue is based on the UNU-WIDER project 'Regional growth and development in Southern Africa'. This project aims...
Journal Article
Occupational segregation by race in South Africa after Apartheid
This paper investigates progress in reducing the high level of racial stratification of occupations after apartheid in South Africa. Empirical analysis, using census microdata and Labour Force Surveys, does not provide compelling evidence of...
Working Paper
New data, new approaches and new evidence
The Republic of South Africa faces the imperative of escaping economic stagnation. This paper seeks to synthesize results from a series of research efforts, including but not limited to the work conducted under the UNU-WIDER project on ‘Regional...
Working Paper
Fragmenting the family?
The disruption of family life is one of the important legacies of South Africa’s colonial and apartheid history. Families were undermined by deliberate strategies implemented through the pass laws, forced removals, urban housing policy, and the...
Journal Special Issue
Firm level analysis using administrative record data
This special issue focuses on a collaborative effort between the National Treasury and the South African Revenue Service (SARS) to employ administrative record data from SARS for economic policy analysis. It contains six research articles plus a...
Working Paper
Agglomeration and productivity in South Africa
Using comprehensive, anonymized tax administrative data for the 2008–14 period, we examine firm-level productivity in South Africa. Measures of firm-level productivity are included in a spatial autoregressive model that assesses spillovers from total...
Research Brief
The gender wage gap in post-apartheid South Africa
The World Bank reports that the world loses US$160 trillion in human capital wealth due to gender wage inequality every year. Inequality is not just an issue of fairness. It is also undesirable because it hampers poverty reduction strategies and...
Lecture
Public Economics Winter School 2017
The University of Pretoria will hold from 3-7 July 2017 the second Winter School – one of the key events in the public economics capacity building initiative managed by GTAC on behalf of the National Treasury.
Mon, 3 July 2017
–
Fri, 7 July 2017
University of Pretoria,
cnr Lynnwood Road and Roper Street,
Pretoria,
South Africa
Past event
In the media
SA-TIED researcher interviewed on tax haven research
SA-TIED researcher, Ludvig Wier, has featured in multiple South African news outlets explaining new research findings from the programme. Wier was invited to speak to anchors from South Africa’s national news channels, SABC and eNCA. He was also...
Policy workshop
Why is South African productivity so low?
This policy workshop on 'Why is South African productivity so low?' is organized by UNU-WIDER together with the National Treasury of South Africa, and the South African Reserve Bank on 7 June 2016 in Pretoria, South Africa.
Tue, 7 June 2016
South African Reserve Bank Conference Centre,
370 Helen Joseph St,
Pretoria,
South Africa
Past event
Working Paper
Gender bias and the intrahousehold distribution of resources
This paper applies recent developments in collective model estimation to elicit the household resource sharing rule, i.e. the amount of household resources accruing to fathers, mothers, and their children among African families in South Africa. We...
Working Paper
Occupational segregation by race in South Africa after apartheid
This paper investigates progress in reducing the high level of racial stratification of occupations after apartheid in South Africa. Empirical analysis, using census microdata and Labour Force Surveys, does not provide strong evidence of sustained or...
Working Paper
Defining high-growth firms in South Africa
Traditionally, much of the research on economic growth drivers has been focused on small and medium enterprises. In recent years the academic focus on small businesses has shifted to a particular group of firms that are interesting from an economic...
Blog
Employing young people in South Africa: What role has the Employment Tax Incentive played?
by
Itumeleng Makgetla
March 2017
South Africa has some of the highest rates of joblessness in the world and youth unemployment is particularly severe. Roughly two in five young South...
Working Paper
An evaluation of interest deduction limitations to counter base erosion in South Africa
This paper aims to describe funding structures of companies liable for tax in South Africa and how this relates to other characteristics, including ownership, of the companies. The research that the paper reports on was performed as descriptive...