Janet Wilhelm
Debates on the sugar tax
The National Treasury proposed 20% tax on sugary soft drinks derives from the National Department of Health strategy to reduce obesity. It is rooted in the scientific consensus that these kinds of drinks are a key factor behind rising obesity and the attendant ailments of diabetes, heart disease and some cancers.
The makers of sugary soft drinks have reacted to the proposed tax with an aggressive attack that contends, among other things, that the tax will lead to massive job losses.
This brief weighs up the arguments by the Beverage Association of South Africa, and finds serious flaws in the data behind them.
Read online: Debates on the sugar tax
APORDE 2016: Inequality, investment and growth
TOPIC
South Africa is among a small group of uniquely unequal countries; if inequality acts as a constraint on growth – and greater equity unlocks it – how does it do so? What are the transmission mechanisms that lead to this effect? Can it be assumed that all forms of inequality are equal in this respect?
All forms of inequality impact negatively on social stability - people all over the world place a high value on fairness and equity, it seems. Such social instability has economic effects. Economic actors typically respond by reducing the scope of their activities, hedging their bets, limiting their risk, off-shoring their assets and investing in financial instruments that allow them flexibility rather than investing in productive activity that could create inclusive forms of growth.
About the Speakers
José Gabriel Palma is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Economics, Cambridge University. He has a D. Phil in Economics from Oxford University, a PHD from Cambridge University (by incorporation) and a D. Phil in Political Science from Sussex University. He worked during the Government of Salvador Allende in the nationalisation of the copper industry, and after his graduate work in the UK he worked as a lecturer at the universities of London, Sussex, Oxford and Cambridge. He has published articles and books dealing with the economics of developing countries, with a strong focus on Latin America and Asia. He has also written extensively on inequality, financial liberalisation and financial crises, industrial policy, de-industrialisation, the history of ideas in development economics and politics, and Latin American economic history.
Kate Philip has extensive experience in the development sector as a practitioner and in policy development, focused on issues of economic marginalisation, inequality, employment and enterprise development. She has provided advisory support to the South African Presidency on issues of inequality and economic marginalisation and through TIPS, she was lead author on a UNDP Working Paper entitled ‘The impacts of social and economic inequality on economic development in South Africa’. She played a central role in the design and development of South Africa’s Community Work Programme, and is currently supporting the Government of Greece in the design of a public employment programme. She is also a Senior Adviser to GTAC in National Treasury. Her PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand in 2007 is entitled: ‘Enterprise on the margins: making markets work for the poor?’
Four creative ways to open university access
Business Day - Neva Makgetla 16 August 2016
Illicit flows could have funded Africa’s development
Engineering News - Natasha Odendaal 21 July 2016
Business Day - Mark Allix 22 July 2016
The Scandanavian model - an interpretation
Presenter: Professor Karl Ove Moene, Department of Economcs, University of Oslo
Professor Karl Ove Moene is a Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Oslo and the founder and leader of the Centre of Equality, Social Organisation and Performance (ESOP) at the University of Oslo. Professor Moene has published over 60 articles in top international journals, covering a wide range of topics including equality, wage compression, welfare, social democracy, the Scandinavian model, Scandinavian equality, and the European social model, among others.
He is also the author of several books, including Trade Union Behaviour, Pay Bargaining and Economic Performance, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1993 and Alternatives to Capitalism, co-edited with J Elster, Cambridge University Press, 1989.
The changing global trade architecture: Implications for Sub-Saharan Africa's development
What are the main changes in the global trading architecture over the past 15 years? How have these changes impacted on Africa’s economic development and the nature of trading relations between Africa and its traditional developed country partners, the European Union, the UK and the USA, and its main developing country partner, China? What are the implications of 'Brexit' - the UK's departure from the European Union - for Africa's trade? And how has the changing narrative of trade and trade integration impacted on Africa’s own strategy to integrate its market? This issue of Commonwealth Trade Hot Topics explores these questions and offers some policy recommendations for African policy-makers and trade negotiators.
See Journal of World Trade 51, no. 1 Wournal of World Trade 51, no 1 2017 by Faizel Ismail: The changing global trade architecture: Implications for Africa's regional integration and development
Faizel Ismail is Faizel Ismail is Adjunct Professor in the School of Economics, University of Cape Town and a TIPS Research Fellow
Steel - where to from here?
The steel industry is in crisis, with a significant decline in local production, falling prices and global overcapacity. The crisis has seen the dissolution of Evraz Highveld and threats to other major producers. In response, the government is seeking ways to ensure that South Africa retains its core steel capacity – historically a central pillar of the industrial economy. The seminar will explore the global and domestic factors behind the downturn and key options for addressing it.
PRESENTER: DR NEVA MAKGETLA
Neva Makgetla has undertaken extensive research into South African economic issues, published widely, and contributed to a number of national economic policy processes and debates from 1994. Until 2015, she was Deputy Director General for economic policy in the Economic Development Department. Before that, she was Lead Economist for the Development Planning
and Implementation Division at the Development Bank of Southern Africa. She has worked at
a senior level in the Presidency and other government departments, and for seven years was
head of the COSATU Policy Unit. She has a PhD in economics and before 1994 worked for
over 10 years as an economics lecturer.
There are innovative responses to our fragile growth
Business Day - Neva Makgetla 19 July 2016
Opportunities for strategic intervention in the South African agricultural sector: Trade and employment
There is scope for a number of strategic interventions by the South African government to support agro-industrial production. These could make a significant difference to the country’s foreign trade and its domestic employment record. This policy brief outlines the potential impact that a more labour-intensive agriculture sector, which is also focused on high value-added products, could make in reducing the balance of payments constraint and support transformation and employment, particularly in rural areas.
The policy brief makes a case for agriculture’s central role in growth, transformation and empowerment. It is based on TIPS research on Agro-processing, wage employment and export revenue: Opportunities for strategic intervention by Christopher Cramer and John Sender.