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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...
– Natural gas as a key
Plastics are universal and integrated into different sectors of the economy. Industrial policy requires countries to look at moving up the value chain and producing progressively more sophisticated products to contribute to improved economic development. The input materials that are used for...
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...
– Can foreign direct investment help South Africa increase the complexity of its exports?
Since the end of apartheid, South Africa’s economic challenges have disrupted efforts to establish a society of inclusive growth and prosperity. Understanding how South Africa can break the pattern of sluggish growth, high unemployment, inequality and poverty is a pressing policy issue. The overall...
– Are they persistently high-growth firms?
The analysis of firm growth has been a topic of consistent economic interest as a growing body of literature has lent support to the possibility that the majority of growth and new employment creation is the result of a small sub-sector of high-growth firms (HGFs). While this has been demonstrated...
– Can South African firms compete with Chinese imports?
China’s growing edge in export manufacturing has caused concern for low-income and middle-income countries seeking to develop robust manufacturing sectors. China’s recent transition from an exporter of lower-tech goods, such as garments, to more advanced products, such as components for high-tech...
– 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...
Blog
The white-painted cluster of traditional style buildings might suggest that this was a farm on the South African veldt. Not so however—it was Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS) Annual Forum held on 14-15 July 2015 at the University of Witwatersrand, a high-level gathering of economists...
Blog
– Jobs and Structural Transformation as Keys to Development
27 August 2014 Roger Williamson The themes of the new UNU-WIDER work programme—transformation, inclusion, and sustainability—were the focus of the WIDER Development Conference held in Vietnam in June this year. Each represents a formidable challenge. Taken together, they seem an almost impossible...
Blog
James Thurlow South Africa is one of the largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters. In 2007 it ranked 13th amongst all countries in terms of its overall emissions from burning fossil fuels, and its per capita emissions were twice the global average. Not surprisingly, there is pressure for South Africa...
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