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TIPS Forum 2001: New Directions in the South African Economy (30)

Engaging the debate on privatization in South Africa: Theories, fables, facts, others

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation University of Cape Town, South Africa
  • Author(s) Melvin D. Ayogu
The Government of South Africa apparently is clear about its goals for the reform of public enterprises. In his 2001 Budget Speech (RSA, 2001a, p.1), the Minister of Public Enterprises explains ?restructuring? as the generic term taken to represent the set of strategies employed by the state to ensure that…
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Where Has All the Growth Gone? South African Manufacturing Industry 1970-2000

  • Year 2001
  • Author(s) Trevor Bell; Nkosi Madula
At the end of the 1960s, after a half century of rapid industrialisation, South Africa had a relatively advanced and diversified manufacturing sector. By the standards of today's advanced industrial countries, which feature in Gerschenkron's (1952) seminal analysis, South Africa was a very late industrialiser, but it was a very…
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Employment, Wages & Skills Development: Firm-Specific Effects Evidence from Two Firm Surveys in South Africa

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation University of Cape Town
  • Author(s) Haroon Bhorat;Paul Lundall
Studies on the South African labour market have almost exclusively focused on the factors determining and shaping the current and future supply of labour in the country. This has, in the main, been driven by the availability of national data sets that have been limited essentially to household surveys produced…
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Finance, Investment and Growth

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation University College London and Saïd Business School...
  • Author(s) Wendy Carlin;Colin Mayer
This paper examines the relation between the institutional structures of advanced OECD countries and the comparative growth and investment of 27 industries in those countries over the period 1970 to 1995. The underlying thesis that the paper examines is that there is a matching between the institutional structures of countries…
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Regulatory Reform: Lessons from the UK

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation University of Oxford, department of Economics
  • Author(s) Simon Cowan
In the 1980s the UK (and Chile) began the processes of privatizing and restructuring stateowned enterprises, liberalizing the markets in which they operated and regulating their conduct. Since then many countries at all levels of development have implemented their own programmes of regulatory reform. Almost two decades after the process…
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Public policy towards the Internet and development

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation IDEI-GREMAQ, Université de Toulouse
  • Author(s) Jacques Cramer
Two years ago, the Internet was seen as changing the world. The most prestigious business schools were rushing to create concentrations in E-commerce, and the conjunction of the entrepreneur (preferably with a Stanford degree) with the venture capitalist was heralded as the key to the "new economy", in which, according…
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Financial Intermediation And The Micro-Finance Sector

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation Development Policy Research Unit, UCT
  • Author(s) Reza Daniels
This paper will evaluate the micro-finance sector in South Africa, its scope and development, and its role in the financial sector and the economy more generally. It is informed by the premise that households and institutions save and invest independently, and that the financial system's role is to intermediate between…
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Competition and Regulation in the Electricity Supply Industry in South Africa

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation University Cape Town
  • Author(s) Anton Eberhard
The South African Electricity Supply Industry (ESI) is dominated by a state-owned and vertically integrated utility, Eskom, which ranks seventh in the world in terms of size and electricity sales. It supplies about 96% of South Africa's electricity requirements which equals more than half of the electricity generated on the…
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The Structure and Competitiveness of South African Trade

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation University of Cape Town
  • Author(s) Lawrence Edwards;Volker Schoer
Since the early 1980s South Africa's trade policy regime has shifted from one of import substitution towards one of export orientation. This shift has been encouraged by trade liberalisation which accelerated in 1994 with tariff liberalisation, export orientation policies that ranged from direct support (GEIS) to marketing related support, and…
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Technology, Human Capital and Growth: Evidence from a Middle Income Country Case Study Applying Dynamic Heterogeneous Panel Analysis

This paper examines whether endogenous growth processes can be found in middle income country contexts. Estimation proceeds by means of dynamic heterogeneous panel analysis. Empirical evidence finds in favour of both knowledge spill-over effects, and of positive impacts on total factor productivty growth by Schumpeterian innovative activity. A crucial finding…
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Explaining the Growth Absence: Reviewing the Evidence that can Account for the Poor Growth Performance of the South African Economy

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation ERSA, University of the Witwatersrand
  • Author(s) Johannes Fedderke
Explaining the Growth Absence: reviewing the evidence that can account for the poor growth performance of the South African economy South Africa's democratic transition now lies close to a decade in the past. The transition carried with it much by way of hopes in terms of a greater access by…
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The Design and Performance of Regulatory Agencies: What can South Africa Learn from the Brazilian Experience?

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation OECD Development Centre – Paris and BNDES – Rio de...
  • Author(s) Andrea Goldstein;Jose Claudio Linhares Pires
In recent years, dozens of OECD and non-OECD countries have followed the United States in establishing strong autonomous regulatory institutions empowered with regulatory instruments and financial independence. Flexibility and agility are required to implement ad hoc policies through regulations, resolutions, and decrees. Their special status also responds to the need…
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Select Competition Issues arising from changes in the Distribution of Pharmaceutical Products in South Africa

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation Development Policy Research Unit, UCT
  • Author(s) Trudi Hartzenberg
Significant changes have taken place in the distribution stage of the pharmaceutical supply chain in the South Africa during the past decade. These have led to a series of complaints and applications for interim relief to the competition authorities. The Competition Tribunal has delivered some judgements that have been in…
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Liberalisation, Regulation and Provision: The Implications of Compliance with International Norms for the South African Financial Sector

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation FEASibility (Pty) Ltd
  • Author(s) Penelope Hawkins
The South African financial sector, described here as the banking, insurance and securities industries, is a sophisticated enclave within widespread financial exclusion. The financial sector is generally regarded as stable and well regulated; indeed it is to the latter that the robustness of the sector has been attributed, in the…
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Promoting Competitive Outcomes in the Fixed Line Telecommunications Sector in South Africa

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation University of Cape Town
  • Author(s) James Hodge
The South African telecommunications sector began its liberalisation path in the early 1990s with the opening of the VANS, customer premises equipment and mobile telephony sectors. However, for fixed line services the government opted for selling an equity stake to a foreign consortium and granting the incumbent an exclusive monopoly…
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Towards a better understanding of the ICT sector in south africa

  • Year 2001
  • Author(s) Tina James;Philip Esselaar;Dr. Jonathan Miller
The purpose of this paper is to present a broad overview of the information and communications technology (ICT) industry in South Africa, based on available secondary sources. Because of the nature of the information economy and the requirements for high-level human resources in this sector, the paper also presents an…
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An Examination of the Impact of Financial Deepening on Long-Run Economic Growth: An Application of a VECM Structure to a Middle- Income Country Context

  • Year 2001
  • Author(s) Chandana Kularatne
The paper examines the impact of financial deepening on long run economic growth in South Africa over the period 1954-92. Two models are developed using the Johansen VECM structure. The first model investigates whether the financial system has a direct or indirect effect on per capita output via the investment…
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Policies to Promote Growth and Employment in South Africa

  • Year 2001
  • Author(s) Jeffrey D. Lewis
This study is published by the World Bank in its informal series of Discussion Papers on the South African Economy. It draws on research supported by discussions and interaction with staff from a wide range of South African institutions. Since 1994, South Africa has made undeniable progress across a number…
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The Determinants of Regulatory Effectiveness in Liberalised Markets Developing Country Experiences

  • Year 2001
  • Author(s) Gertrude Makaya
The past two decades have witnessed far-reaching reforms in the provision of telecommunications services. Before the 1980's, telecoms services were mainly provided by state-owned enterprises and in rare cases by private monopolies with territorial or functional licenses. The 80's saw the role of the state being increasingly changed from that…
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An Examination of the Impact of Economic Policy on Long-run Economic Growth An Application of a VECM Structure to a Middle- Income Context

  • Year 2001
  • Author(s) Martine Mariotti
The determinants of economic growth have long interested economists. A number of variables have been found to be significant, among them the private investment rate, human capital investment rates, the political stability of a country and others. An important sub-category of such determinants is policy variables. Specifically, two such variables…
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Unlocking Value in the 'New Economy': The Implications of B2B E-Commerce for South African Apparel and Automotive Component Firms

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation University of Natal, Durban
  • Author(s) Sagren Moodley;Mike Morris;Justin Barnes
The 'new economy' remains an ambiguous concept which means different things to different people (see, for example, Cohen et al. 2000; OECD, 2000a, b; Shapiro and Varian, 1999). We argue that the notion of a 'new economy' is closely tied to the economic transformations which are powered by the development…
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Explaining Long-Run Growth in South Africa And OECD Countries: Implications for the Rest of SADC Countries

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation National Institute for Economic Policy (NIEP)
  • Author(s) Kevin Nell
This paper tests a 'generalised' version of Thirlwall's balance-of-payments (BOP) constrained growth model by examining the existence of a long-run relation between the output growth rates of OECD countries, South Africa and the rest of the Southern African Development Community (RSADC). Although the policy implications of the study are not…
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Information Technology and Producer Services A Source of Economic Development: The South African Case

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation SNF
  • Author(s) Hildegunn Kyvik NordÃ¥s
This paper discusses one aspect of the by now somewhat discredited 'new economy', namely the impact of information and communication technology on the growth in volume and diversity of producer services. It provides an analysis of data on developments within transport, communication, finance and business services in South Africa and…
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Technology Dissemination and Economic Growth: Some Lessons for the New Economy

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation LSE Economics Department
  • Author(s) Danny Quah
Because the New Economy is so intertwined with Information and Communications Technology, we are primed to think of New Economy developments as nothing more than technology-driven, productivity improving changes on the supply side. We then want New Economy developments to do what all technical progress has historically done. And we…
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The Export Behaviour of South African Manufacturing Firms

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation Centre for the Study of African Economies, Univers...
  • Author(s) Neil Rankin
This paper presents results based on a recent South African firm-level survey. It examines the export behaviour of South African manufacturing firms, it attempts to characterise the decision to export and it also considers the destination of exports. We find the following: 71% of South African firms export. These firms…
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Capital/Skills-Intensity and Job Creation: An Analysis of Policy Options

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation Economic Policy Research Institute
  • Author(s) Michael Samson;Kenneth Mac Quene;Ingrid van Niekerk
The South African government's objectives of job creation and poverty reduction depend on the success of policies that promote the employment of unskilled labour. Over the past decade, unskilled jobs in the formal sector have been lost, while the demand for skilled capital and labour has risen. In sectors that…
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The Level And Variation Of Tariff Rates: An Analysis Of Nominal And Effective Tariff Rates In South Africa For The Years 2000 And 2001

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation Trade & Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS)
  • Author(s) Dirk Ernst van Seventer
This note presents a first cut at analysing the tariff schedule that is applied to South African imports. The aim is to show various ways in which tariffs on South African imports can be analysed such that DTI can develop in-house capacity to undertake such analysis on an on-going basis.…
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The Internationalization Of The South African Telecommunications Sector

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation School of Economic and Business Sciences, WITS
  • Author(s) Milton Taka
South Africa's telecommunications sector is the largest in Africa by important measures, including number of fixed lines, number of cellular subscribers, technological capability, equipment design, manufacturing capabilities, financial revenues, investment and data service users. There has also been substantial and increasing international participation alongside the linked processes of privatization and…
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Competition Policy and SMEs: The Case of Denmark Within the European Union

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation Danish Federation of Small and Medium-sized Enterp...
  • Author(s) Peter L. Vesterdorf
The aim of the paper is to demonstrate the ways in which EU competition policy and specifically Danish competition policy1, aim to protect the interests of not only private consumers, but also small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). As a point of departure it is useful to mention that the individual…
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Determinants and Impact of ICT use for African SMEs: Implications for Rural South Africa

  • Year 2001
  • Organisation Center for Development Research (ZEF Bonn)
  • Author(s) Susanna Wolf
In most African countries small and medium enterprises (SME) account for a significant share of production and employment and are therefore directly connected to poverty alleviation. While in many respects the South African economy is different to that of other countries in the continent, for the poor population in the…
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