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Publications (12)
– The impact on equality in South Africa
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 affordability for the poor. An in-depth analysis of...
– The case of value-added tax in South Africa
In a democratic system, taxation is a critical part of the social contract between the state and its citizens. The tax system can be used to help address the unacceptably high levels of poverty, inequality, and unemployment in South Africa. An increase in VAT from 14% to 15% caused a modest rise in...
Even though poverty and inequality have been of overriding concern in South Africa’s development policies and programmes since its democratization in 1994, measures of poverty, inequality, and related phenomena in the country do not show a clear improvement. In some important respects, they show...
– A pathway to effective tax collection in South Africa
Many governments, particularly those in developing countries, have set an objective to improve tax revenue mobilization to offer more and better public services to their citizens. To develop effective revenue-raising strategies it is necessary to determine whether there is a tax revenue gap and gain...
– The distribution of household wealth in South Africa
South Africa is, by most contemporary measures, the most unequal country in the world. Yet, relatively little attention has been given to country’s wealth inequality. It is crucial to accurately measure the concentration of wealth inequality over time, identify the root causes of the current...
Much of the research on the impact of fiscal policy shocks on macroeconomic outcomes (e.g., fiscal multipliers) uses reduced-form modelling approaches such as vector auto-regressions to obtain empirical results. In a recent study1, we used this approach to estimate fiscal multipliers for South...
Monetary policy affects the real economy through various channels, including the interest rate, exchange rate, credit, and asset price channels. The credit channel has recently received considerable attention. Small firms are more sensitive to changes in interest rates. Small firms which are...
Despite the frequent use of fiscal policy for stabilization purposes, there remains significant uncertainty regarding the impact of fiscal policy decisions on macroeconomic outcomes. This impact is quantified by calculating fiscal multipliers. A fiscal multiplier measures the impact of government’s...
New research provides the first direct evidence of tax-motivated transfer mispricing in a developing country. Using highly detailed firm-level customs data from the tax authority, the analysis calculates the difference between legitimate estimates of market prices (known as the arm’s-length price)...
Special economic zones (SEZ) in Africa are generally regarded as underperforming relative to their peers in the rest of the world. To explain this underperformance and to support success in the future it is important to analyse the key features and what is lacking in the design of African special...
The study uses a comparative analysis of foreign-owned firms operating in South Africa to show that firms with a parent registered in a tax haven tend to report 80% less in profits than similar firms without a parent in a tax haven. This is highly suggestive, but not conclusive, evidence of profit...
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