Past Projects
Trade and Industry
Industrial policy forms the core of TIPS’s work. In this context, TIPS supports the Department of Trade and Industry (the dti), the Departmenet of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME), the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and several other departments and stakeholders with targeted studies to support policy development for industrial and trade policy as well as manufacturing growth.
TIPS undertakes research, among others, into national and regional sectors, value chains and clusters; the impact of state and private institutions on manufacturing growth and diversification; the barriers to entry to small and medium enterprise in manufacturing; the extent and nature of innovation; and the impact of manufacturing on broader economic growth and development, income distribution and job creation.
Trade research has also been an important research area of TIPS since its establishment. TIPS has looked at many different aspects of international trade, including country studies, trade policy, export development and the relationship between trade and industrial policy.
See research archive
15 June 2001
Notes on Welfare Losses of Tariffs and Tariff Protection: A Partial Equilibrium Application to South African Data
Almost immediately after the first democratic election, South African policy makers embraced the policy of trade liberalisation (see Holden 2000). To many observers, the offer made by South Africa to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has been very generous. Various…
Published in
SADC Trade Development
Topic:
15 June 2001
The Role of the Small and Medium Enterprise Sector in Latin America: Implications for South Africa
The current economic setting in most Latin American countries suggests that if the small and medium enterprise sector does not perform well during the next couple of decades, overall economic performance will also be unsatisfactory, especially in the areas of…
Published in
Trade & Growth Dynamics
Topic:
01 January 2001
A Future for Labour in the Global Economy
From the standpoint of labor around the world the problem with globalization is not that it lowers market-determined wages and reduces employment - it is as likely to do the opposite, and which it does will vary from country to…
Published in
Trade & Growth Dynamics
Topic:
15 June 2000
Service Sector Dynamics and Service Regulation
In most industrialised economies, service sectors do not only show high growth rates of output and employment : they also go through dramatic changes with respect to use of technology, innovation, and regulatory frameworks. Service sector performance becomes more and…
Published in
Trade & Growth Dynamics
15 June 2000
Failing or Not Aiming to Grow? Manufacturing SMMEs and their Contribution to Employment Growth in South Africa
South Africa’s recent integration into the world economy provokes the question about its potential for building competitive advantage and prosperity at the local level in the context of an increasingly globalised economy. The experience of prospering localities in industrialised countries,…
Published in
Trade & Growth Dynamics
15 June 2000
Trade In Transport Services: South Africa And The General Agreement On Trade In Services
This document has been prepared for the Trade and Industrial Policy Secretariat (TIPS) in light of the imperative for South Africa to prepare its negotiating mandate at the discussions around the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) General Agreement on Trade in…
Published in
Trade & Growth Dynamics
Topic:
A narrow unemployment rate of 21.2% and a broad unemployment rate of 36% in 1997 in South Africa indicate a substantial number of working age people who did not work in the last seven days but would accept a job…
Published in
Trade & Growth Dynamics
Topic:
It is generally acknowledged that there is no sufficient, exhaustive and elaborate empirical examination of the quantitative impact of policies pertaining to import demand and economic growth in South Africa. In order to arrive at conclusive, sagacious and applicable policies…
Published in
SADC Trade Development
Topic:
The paper aimed to establish the changes that had occurred in the institutional structures governing trade policy in South Africa during the period 1990-1998. It also examined the forces that had influenced the application of tariff policy by the major…
Published in
SADC Trade Development
Topic:
15 June 2000
FTAs with India and Brazil: An Initial Analysis
The purpose of this report is to launch a debate on the proposed free trade agreements (FTAs) with Brazil and India by providing some preliminary analysis. Two different but complementary research methodologies have been employed, each of which provides a…
Published in
SADC Trade Development
Topic:
The South African Competition Act of 1998, implemented on 1 September 1999, establishes a range of criteria for evaluating mergers and company practices that are deemed to harm economic efficiency, among other objectives. In particular, the Act prohibits a range…
Published in
Trade & Growth Dynamics
Topic:
Low investment levels in the South African economy are consistently identified as the principal factor behind suboptimal growth rates. Despite the increasing recognition of the importance of investment there is relatively little analytical research available in South Africa on the…
Published in
Trade & Growth Dynamics
Topic:
15 June 2000
Production and Technology Changes, Restructuring, and Employment in the Plastics Sector
The paper utilises data from a survey of plastics firms and six firm case studies to examine the relationships between production and technology changes, and employment. The analysis examines associations between different factors influencing firms in making such changes and…
Published in
Trade & Growth Dynamics
15 June 2000
South Africa's International Cost Competitiveness
The purpose of this paper is to assess South Africa’s international price and cost competitiveness, particularly with regard to labor costs, and to examine the quantitative relationships between South African cost competitiveness and tradeperformance. South African export and investment performance…
Published in
Trade & Growth Dynamics
Topic:
01 January 2000
A Critical Analysis of the Regional Trade Model for South Africa (RTMSA): Implications for Future Research
The studies of Evans (1996, 1997a,b) appear to be the most analytically ambitious attempts to address, empirically, the question of the economic desirability of a southern African free trade area (FTA). Evans (1996) is apparently the only serious study available…
Published in
SADC Trade Development
Topic:
The aim of this paper is to explore some of the major differences in the ways in which governments influence the process of skill formation. In particular, we focus on the ways in which governments use the market as a…
Published in
Trade & Growth Dynamics
Topic:
This paper describes formal employment trends in the South African economy since 1970, through using both survey and time-series data. In addition, the study tries to understand the forces that have shaped these employment trends. The descriptive statistics reveal that…
Published in
SADC Trade Development
Topic:
15 June 1999
Competitiveness, International Trade and Finance in a Mineral-Rich Economy: The Case of South Africa
The aim of this paper is to consider the relationship between competitiveness, international trade and financial factors in the South African economy. The term ‘competitiveness’ is used here in two closely related, but distinctly different, senses. One of these refers…
Published in
SADC Trade Development
15 June 1999
Examining the Cost of Services Protection in a Developing Country: The Case of South Africa
In the lead-up to the next round of WTO talks, some commentators have argued that developing countries should liberalise their service industries for their own benefit and not just in response to industrial country demands. This paper critically explores this…
Published in
Trade & Growth Dynamics
Topic: