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Publications (100)
In South Africa, the power grid undergoes rotational, scheduled outages—or rolling blackouts—most commonly referred to as load shedding. Load shedding is primarily a consequence of frequent breakdowns at the national utility. These are due to a combination of poor long-term planning, a lack of...
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– What Is Missing from National Economic Recovery Plans?
From the book:
COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Accounts from Residents of Cape Town’s Largest Township
From the book:
COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Differentiated Impacts and an Uneven Recovery
From the book:
COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
Blog
The climate stabilization imperative emerging from the Paris Agreement is, in so many ways, absolutely critical to securing the planet’s future for all. The Agreement necessitates a transition away from fossil fuel-based economic production, particularly the use of coal as a source of energy. In...
Blog
In monetary policy communication, every word carries weight. Consider this scenario: the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) articulates its stance to anchor inflation expectations, yet this message undergoes subtle transformations when translated by the media and financial analysts. How do divergent...
Blog
Sub-Saharan Africa has abundant natural resources and a substantial market, with an estimated population of 1.2 billion. The population is projected to grow by nearly 80% and reach almost 2 billion people by 2043. This population growth is expected to parallel an economic expansion, with annual...
Blog
New analysis of income data in South Africa shows the gender pay gap—how much more men earn than women—has increased. According to findings from a study conducted by the SA-TIED programme, in 2021, women in South Africa earned 78 cents for every rand earned by men, compared to 89 cents in 2008. This...
Blog
South Africa ranks as the world’s most unequal country by income. This is largely due to high wage inequality, given that wages are the main income source for the majority of the working population. Exploring the nuances of this inequality prompts a critical question: what is the extent of employers...
Blog
The South African constitution is considered progressive and transformative in intention due to its inclusion of socioeconomic rights, such as the right to education, food, and healthcare. However, some of these rights are qualified by the availability of state resources, which places an imperative...
Blog
Data is the key to informed decision-making in today's rapidly changing world. As nations strive to address complex economic challenges, data-driven insights have become indispensable. South Africa is no exception, facing issues like declining GDP per capita, sluggish productivity growth, and rising...
– 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 to the pandemic and associated lockdown regulations. Given the extent of unemployment in South Africa even prior to the pandemic, the policy’s primary...
Blog
In celebration of South Africa's Women's Month, SA-TIED is spotlighting women driving change in economics. Through the 'Breaking Barriers, Building Economies: Women in Economic Policy' campaign, we highlight their achievements, challenges, and invaluable contributions. Pumla Bam, Senior Specialist...
Blog
In celebration of South Africa's Women's Month, SA-TIED is spotlighting exceptional women with the 'Breaking Barriers, Building Economies: Women in Economic Policy' campaign. Among these leaders is Nadine Riedel, whose journey in economics and economic policymaking reflects an unwavering commitment...
Blog
As part of the SA-TIED ‘Breaking Barriers, Building Economies: Women in Economic Policy' initiative, Georgina Ryan emerges as a visionary force driving economic transformation. With a research-driven foundation and a master's in development studies, Georgina's journey has been guided by a commitment...
Blog
In celebration of South Africa's Women's Month, SA-TIED is spotlighting the women driving change within the field of economics. Through the ‘Breaking Barriers, Building Economies: Women in Economic Policy’ campaign, we highlight their achievements, challenges, and invaluable contributions. Mamiky...
Blog
– How SA-TIED transformed my career
When I began my role as a research assistant for the SA-TIED programme in January 2020, I didn’t know that it would lead me to such prestigious institutions like Yale University and the World Bank. The programme has been instrumental in shaping my career and providing me with opportunities to...
Blog
In celebration of South Africa's Women's Month, SA-TIED is spotlighting the women driving change within the field of economics. Through the ‘Breaking Barriers, Building Economies: Women in Economic Policy’ campaign, we highlight their achievements, challenges, and invaluable contributions. Carol...
Blog
Nearly half the working-age population and nearly two-thirds of the unemployed live in areas designated as townships under apartheid spatial laws. Originally developed as 'labour dormitories', they have been challenging to develop as more vibrant local economies and residential areas. What can the...
Blog
The South African rail freight sector is currently facing a crisis of operational efficiency, which is having a significant economic impact. In the bulk mineral corridors, reduced rail capacity has prevented South Africa from benefiting from recent mineral price booms. The general freight rail...
Research on how income inequality affects borrowing behaviour reignited after the 2008 global recession. One prevailing theory is that rising income inequality in the US and other high-income economies eroded real household incomes and prompted more and more borrowing. This growing debt culminated...
Blog
– Bosses are part of the problem
South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world. This income inequality is mostly due to high unemployment and large differences in wages. In South Africa today, economists and policymakers typically focus on worker characteristics such as education to address wage inequality...
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Tasks, Skills, and Institutions
‘I intend to see a world in which tax policy research is based on evidence, and policy decisions are data-driven.’ This is an aspiration expressed by a participant of the WIDER Winter School 2022. The comment summarizes well the reasoning behind the course and UNU-WIDER’s goals for domestic revenue...
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– South Africa’s Kuznetsian tension
From the book:
The Developer’s Dilemma
Are there enough tax payers to generate the revenue needed by governments to reduce poverty? How adequate are the social security arrangements that already exist? Anyone who has started to probe these issues will know that the answers to such questions can be hard to pin down. This is why the...
Blog
– The power of ideas & the limits of technocracy
What will it take to shake loose the distemper of our times, and initiate a virtuous spiral of renewal? In a recent UNU-WIDER webinar, Alan Hirsch and I explored why a narrow focus on growth and good governance will not be enough to get South Africa (and, by analogy, other countries similarly...
Stunted growth in early life has serious implications for cognitive development and is a well-established constraint to individual productivity and life expectancy. Vulnerability in childhood is highly correlated with stunted growth in many developing countries and is therefore a pressing concern...
Blog
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 found a way to keep their heads above water, living on the fringes of urban society. The COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa was one of the earliest...
Tax benefits to boost contributions into pension funds or pension-related tax expenditures (PTEs) are used widely by governments worldwide to address issues related to the aging of population and the sustainability of retirement systems. Although these goals are worth pursuing, PTEs are often highly...
In most countries, traditional gender roles within the household are still common due to the prevalence and persistence of patriarchal systems. These roles put a greater burden of care work on women, which can reduce women’s leisure time relative to men. My colleagues, Claire Vermaak, Colette Muller...
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– The top-end, labour markets, fiscal redistribution and the persistence of very high inequality
From the book:
Inequality in the Developing World
Agriculture and agro-processing value chains have been under pressure during the COVID-19 pandemic. This has been particularly marked where they remain underdeveloped, as is the case in South Africa and the rest of the region. Regulatory responses to the pandemic disrupted agriculture and agro...
Blog
– COVID-19 in South Africa
South Africa’s COVID-19 lockdown regulations are likely to have a devastating impact on the incomes of workers and their dependents. Already disadvantaged groups will suffer disproportionately from the adverse effects. Low-income earners performing jobs in precarious, informal sectors of the economy...
Blog
While growing up, I was troubled by the scale of the socioeconomic gap between the haves and the have-nots in the community around me. I saw cases where some individuals and households could afford education, quality healthcare, nice houses, nutritious food and good clothing, while others lived in...
Corporate taxation is at the heart of economic development, and cardiac failure looms if international tax reform is not made globally inclusive There is a close link between a country’s economic development and its capacity to collect tax revenue. Tax administrations in developing countries often...
Blog
– Explaining income distributions with ‘decompositions’
The understanding of inequality requires the analysis of changes in income distributions across countries and over time as well as the identification of its drivers. To achieve this we use different statistical tools to identify the distributional patterns and summarize the results using inequality...
Blog
In 2016, we joined a project in South Africa working to make tax data available for research purposes. Tax authorities collect an enormous amount of data on companies and individuals, data that is useful for economics research and economic policy-making, and the potential to learn from such a large...
As the largest economy in sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa’s successes and failures spill over into the broader region. Today, as South Africans face high unemployment and a sluggish economy, policymakers are wrestling to create success through solutions that will quell rising public debt, overcome...
Income inequality is the result of complex processes with multiple interacting driving forces but understanding those drivers in emerging economies is particularly difficult because of data and analytical challenges. While most middle-income countries produce comprehensive household surveys these...
The many faces of inequality Measuring inequality isn’t as simple as it may seem. We know that since the 1970s global inequality has been falling in relative terms, but absolute inequality has been increasing over the same period. There are also substantial differences in trends across the different...
– A report from the stakeholder workshop - 15 November 2018, Pretoria, South Africa
I found myself in the third-floor conference rooms of a Pretoria hotel for a meeting with economists, researchers, and policymakers involved in the SA-TIED programme. We had gathered here to discuss research progress in SA-TIED for two of the six work streams: Public revenue mobilization and Turning...
From the book:
Industries without Smokestacks
It’s early July and I’m back in Maputo, Mozambique, looking over the calm sea at the boats that fish the waters for the seafood that makes visiting this part of Africa such a treat. The sunset here is a delicate combination of pale turquoise, light grey, and warm pink. Coming from the Finnish summer...
Engagement is needed at all levels to address ongoing inequality faced in South Africa. This was the primary aim of a recent policy seminar in Pretoria, organized through the framework of the Mandela Initiative and partners, including UNU-WIDER. The idea of the gathering was to engage a group of...
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...
Displaying 48 of 100 results