Econ3x3
The changing landscape of sustainable finance
22nd April 2022 The global climate effects of rising carbon emissions are fast becoming too costly to ignore. However, mitigating these effects also carry risks... →
The Russia-Ukraine war will hurt SA investment ambitions: lessons from nine wars
4th April 2022 Lessons from nine wars since the early 1970s, and the Brexit vote, show that global foreign direct investment inflows generally decline during the... →
Social stratification around the NSFAS threshold: A dynamic approach to profiling the missing middle
24th March 2022 In 2018, government announced that the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) would fund all eligible post-school students whose household... →
Basic income support is unavoidable, but making it work requires political courage
8th February 2022 As government gears up to announce its programme for the next year, through the State of the Nation address and the Budget, it seems certain that... →
The politics of economic change
21st January 2022 The political settlement forged around South Africa’s transition from apartheid to democracy created the conditions for a corporate restructuring... →
The MTBPS makes a start: now we need the policies for growth
2nd December 2021 South Africa’s national budget is one of the most redistributive in the emerging markets, but our rising debt to GDP ratio threatens future... →
The case for a Universal Basic Income Grant
29th November 2021 The Covid pandemic has greatly exacerbated existing poverty and unemployment in South Africa. What are the best policies to alleviate it? Targeted... →
The MTBPS clears some fiscal space but it is still a path through a swamp
18th November 2021 Treasury did the best it could in this month’s Medium Term Budget Policy Statement. Half the revenue windfall was used for fiscal consolidation and... →
COVID-19: the measure of learning losses
11th November 2021 How much learning did primary school children in poorer schools lose due to the lockdowns resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic? Three different... →
The EU Green Deal: how will it impact South African agricultural exports?
27th October 2021 The European Union (EU) is the second most important market for South Africa's agricultural products, accounting for 27% of the country's total... →
Why South African agricultural products face frontiers in African markets
15th October 2021 South Africa's export-oriented agricultural sector is heavily reliant on the African continent, accounting for over 40% of annual exports. The... →
Is South Africa's trade policy failing the agricultural sector?
7th October 2021 South Africa's agricultural exports have grown significantly over the past two decades. Yet agricultural private-sector role players typically... →
Part 2: Fiscal Dimensions of South Africa's crisis
13th July 2021 In the first article in this series, we examined the history of SA’s economic policy and some of the roots of its current fiscal crisis. We looked... →
Part 1: Fiscal dimensions of South Africa's crisis
13th July 2021 At the start of the democratic project, South Africa hoped for a “fiscal renaissance”. After a brief period of consolidation, social spending rose,... →
New opportunities for South African agriculture: the African Continental Free Trade Area
17th February 2021 The new African Free Continental Trade Area phases out 90% of tariffs on all goods traded between African Union member states over a 5 to 10 year... →
African governments should have a fresh look at agriculture as part of the economic recovery plan after Covid-19
3rd December 2020 The Covid-19 pandemic presents an opportunity for African governments to relook agriculture as part of the economic recovery plan. A new approach... →
The Covid-19 crisis has amplified spatial inequalities
1st October 2020 The economic and social crisis induced by Covid-19 is unfolding in different ways across the country. New evidence from the NIDS-CRAM survey... →
Covid-19’s economic effects: tourism’s supply-chain impacts
13th August 2020 While the impact of the Covid-19 lock-down on the tourism sector may seem clear, the potential impact on its supply chain has not been... →
Finance and businesses in the time of Corona
1st April 2020 The lockdown and physical distancing measures of government impact small and medium-sized companies severely as they lack the financial reserves to... →
Soaring deficits and debt: restoring sustainability amidst low economic growth
24th February 2020 The debt burden of the national government has steadily increased from 27% in 2007. It is heading towards 70% in 2022/3 if this trajectory is not... →
Hiding in plain sight: high-value agriculture’s large-scale potential to grow jobs and exports
18th September 2019 South Africa has a major but overlooked opportunity to expand the production of high-value agricultural products that are both labour-intensive and... →
Socio-economic class in South Africa: playing snakes and ladders with loaded dice
13th August 2019 Experiences of poverty over time differ markedly. Out of four South Africans, two experience persistent poverty with few future prospects. Another... →
The informal economy: Is policy based on correct assumptions?
19th February 2019 We analyse the emphasis in informal-sector and informal-economy policy, highlighting who runs the risk of being missed. We then interrogate... →
Why has manufacturing employment declined so rapidly?
3rd October 2018 The manufacturing sector has performed poorly and employment has fallen sharply. Policy has tended to push manufacturing onto a more... →
The top 1% of incomes are increasing rapidly even with low economic growth
12th September 2018 We use tax data (which include accurate data for the very rich) to investigate the patterns of income growth over the period 2003 to 2016. Despite... →
Creating jobs, reducing poverty V: Is ‘formalising’ the informal sector the answer?
21st August 2018 This extract from a new REDI3x3 book proposes a constructive way to approach the possible ‘formalisation’ of the informal sector. A common impulse... →
Creating jobs, reducing poverty I: Why the informal sector should be taken seriously and enabled properly
26th July 2018 It is not uncommon to find researchers and commentators viewing informal-sector participants as being without aspirations or entrepreneurial... →
What affects job retention and job creation: reservation wages or reservation what?
2nd July 2018 Unemployment research typically inquires how to generate more jobs and how to keep workers working. Researchers often probe the reservation wage... →
Informal enterprise ownership: the importance of previous employment experience
12th June 2018 Enterprises in the informal sector are known to have a precarious existence. The economic value and survival of an informal enterprise depend on... →
The sudden jump in the unemployment rate in 2015: Is there a break in the QLFS data?
17th May 2018 This article argues that there is a time-series break in StatsSA’s Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) in the first quarter of 2015. The principal... →
Does moving to a city mean a better life? New evidence
17th April 2018 Moving to a city in search of work seems to pay off for many poor people in the countryside. Data that track changes over time indicate that as... →
Meeting food security needs in very poor households in the Eastern Cape: the role of own agricultural production
8th February 2018 Small-scale agriculture evokes strong views in terms of both its current and potential roles in rural development. We examine how many (or few)... →
Poor land governance stifles rural development and have knock-on effects in urban areas
24th November 2017 Several researchers in the REDI3x3 project focused on poverty in rural areas in the Eastern Cape, which contains two former apartheid homelands,... →
Are we measuring poverty and inequality correctly? Comparing earnings using tax and survey data
4th October 2017 Calculating the earnings Gini coefficient with survey data from the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) may lead to an underestimation of... →
Reservation wages found in surveys can be very misleading
12th September 2017 The responses of unemployed workers to the typical survey question about their ‘lowest acceptable wages’ are susceptible to error and... →
Land and property rights: 'title deeds as usual' won’t work
25th August 2017 Renewed emphasis in policy discourses on systematic land titling to solve insecure tenure in South Africa is understandable. A staggering two... →
The Transkei Wild Coast: still waiting for something to happen
12th July 2017 The Wild Coast, in the former Transkei Bantustan, is characterised by natural beauty and great poverty. Since 1994 rural land administration has... →
Technology and minimum wages are likely to change the mix of capital and labour in industry
20th June 2017 While technology is making capital cheaper, policies like the national minimum wage will make labour more expensive. What does this mean for the... →
A job in the informal sector reduces poverty about as much as a job in the formal sector
30th May 2017 In the aggregate, earnings from jobs in the informal sector play a small role in reducing national poverty rates, especially because there are... →
‘You can’t bite the hand that feeds you’: Contracts between SME suppliers and the large supermarkets
10th May 2017 This article examines the implications of the contracts between the four main South African supermarkets and their SME suppliers. Supermarkets’... →
Innovative joint ventures can boost agricultural production and promote agrarian transformation
19th April 2017 Growing agriculture can reduce poverty, create economic opportunities in rural and peri-urban areas, and boost employment, particularly for semi-... →
