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Publications (45)
Working Paper
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– A policy synthesis
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 growth and development in Southern Africa’, and...
Working Paper
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– A firm-level analysis
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 smallest companies are facing the highest effective...
Working Paper
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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 growth and policy development perspective, namely...
Blog
– Data, research, and improved policymaking in South Africa
Policymakers often work in the dark, as they try to make real impact on people’s lives. If you don’t have good data, being worked on by good researchers, it can be hard to know whether efforts are truly making a difference. In South Africa one key area where data and evidence have been missing is on...
– Growing the animal-feed-to-poultry regional value chain
In 2016 the South African poultry sector faced intense pressure from two sides in the form of much higher input costs and increased imports of low-priced chicken from the European Union and the USA. Poultry firms have called for increased protection against imports. Instead of taking a short-term...
Blog
– What role has the Employment Tax Incentive played?
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 Africans who want work cannot find it, according to labour force surveys. The South African government has introduced numerous policies to help young...
Working Paper
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– Competition in road transportation of perishable goods between Malawi, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe
Rapid urbanization and rising income levels in Southern Africa have increased the consumption of perishable and processed food products. This paper relies primarily on firm-level interview data to assess competition and bottlenecks in transporting time-sensitive perishable products across borders...
Working Paper
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– Political economy, trade, and policy environment
Expansion of biofuels production and consumption at the regional and national levels relies on both supportive energy prices and policy interventions. Despite enthusiasm for policy interventions to stimulate biofuel production in Southern African countries in the mid-2000s, the years since have seen...
Working Paper
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– Competition in road transportation between Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe
Efficient transport links are critical to enhancing the integration of markets in Southern Africa. This paper assesses the structure of markets, competition, and prices and costs of road transportation between urban hubs in Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Key findings are...
– Regional integration in southern Africa through supermarkets
Walk into any supermarket and you will find a mix of products to stock the kitchen. It’s easy to assume that many of the goods on offer are sourced locally and from nearby countries. In the region of southern Africa, however, imported goods are often shipped from another continent instead of...
Supermarkets are a key route to market for many suppliers of food and household consumable products. The growth of supermarket chains in southern Africa presents important opportunities for suppliers, as it potentially opens up much larger regional markets for them. Supermarkets can therefore be a...
Working Paper
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This paper presents some methodological improvements made to the linked SATIM–eSAGE energy-economy-environment modelling framework for analysing energy and climate policy in South Africa. The improvements include the linking of the households and the other economic sectors of the eSAGE economy-wide...
Working Paper
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Developed as well as developing countries will have to increase their ambition relative to their stated Nationally Determined Contributions to limit global temperature increases to 2°C above pre-industrial levels. South Africa’s Nationally Determined Contribution, in line with national policy, is to...
Working Paper
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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 analyses. While no clear indication of a preference for...
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– Implications on suppliers in Botswana and South Africa
This paper explores the effect of the spread of supermarkets on the participation of suppliers in supermarket value chains in Botswana and South Africa. Using secondary data and in-depth interviews with key players in the value chain, the paper evaluates the buyer power of supermarkets evidenced in...
Working Paper
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Labour market analysis in the South African context provides a relatively robust understanding of the individual characteristics that influence wage differentials across workers (i.e. supply-side characteristics), but provides relatively little insight into the firm-level characteristics influencing...
Displaying 16 of 45 results