Trade liberalisation has a significant impact on firm-market dynamics in a regional context. The purpose of this paper is to use an industrial organisation framework, focusing on the analytical units, the firm and the market, to assess the impact of trade liberalisation within the Southern African region, SADC. It is…

This paper describes the status of financial systems for a number of African countries south of the Sahara, identifying various problems that hinder access to finance, especially for the poor, and subsequently those issues that deter economic performance and development. The countries surveyed were selected on the basis of a…

This document has two objectives. First, it endeavours to capture the domestic clothing sectors major market and production trends, as well as broader dynamics. Second, these foundational elements operate as a mechanism to identify current clothing sector constraints and opportunities and hence the need for, and the importance of, policy…

The Motor Industry Development Program (MIDP) is widely regarded as a major success of South Africa's post-apartheid trade and industrial policies. The program was introduced in 1995, has been modified and/or extended several times, and is currently scheduled to continue until 2012. A DTI-funded review, the third since the programs…

This paper will identify differences in sector development in countries that have proceeded along various paths for sector reform. International experience demonstrates that economies adopting a more ambitious path for liberalization and market- friendly forms of subsidization perform better after liberalization. Economies that adopt both a policy of liberalization and…

Section 1 examines South Africa's comparative industrial performance over approximately the last two decades – manufacturing value added (MVA), manufactured exports in aggregate and exports of dynamic manufactured products, and industrial structure. Two “equity dimensions” of this performance that feature strongly in government's objectives for manufacturing are then outlined –…

In this exploratory analysis of household survey data, households' main income sources are used indicators of integration into the South African core economy. Notwithstanding the country's high urbanization rates, the picture of household income generation which emerges is one that disputes common perceptions of the multitude of means by which…

Competition policy is part of the new international orthodoxy in economic policy and, at the same time, was viewed in South Africa as a crucial element of economic transformation. This article reviews the role of competition policy in economic development and the experiences of developing countries such as Brazil and…

Since 2005 there have been two training workshops to equip interested individuals and organisations to prepare for the Economic Partnerships Agreement (EPA) negotiations. As the SADC EPA negotiations are now heading towards the final months, one more workshop is offered. The main focus will be extraction of data from the…

Prior to East Asia's financial meltdown in the second half of 1997, there appeared the prospect of an uneasy consensus on the East Asian 'miracle'…

This paper summarizes the case for open economy industrial policy (OEIP) in Latin America and the Caribbean and responds to potential objections, namely, endogeneity, selection…

In the last decade, few countries have figured prominently as cases of late-late developers that achieved worldwide success with their Information Technology (IT) industries. This…

The discussion on this paper is based on the development of a framework for conducting industrial policy that minimizes the risk that it will generate…

The debate about industrial policy occasioned by the East Asian financial crisis is the latest chapter in an ongoing discussion about the effectiveness of selective…

The main patterns of industrial development over the past decade are reviewed together with the broad thrusts of industrial policy. Despite major restructuring of industry…

This paper explores export performance in South Africa over the past 50 years, and concludes that a lagging process of structural transformation is part of…

This paper considers a case study of the challenges posed to interventionist economic policy-making by the existence and operation of the free trade institutions. The…

Globalization is a pervasive influence on industrialization in the developing world. As the embodiment of technological progress and more open markets, it offers huge productive…

Africa's industrial performance has been poor and its ability to industrialize successfully is under increasing question. This paper argues that industrialization remains vital to African…