South Africa's education system remains shaped by a legacy of colonialism and apartheid, with persistent racial disparities in attainment despite multiple post-1994 reforms. Using wave 5 of the National Income Dynamics Study, this paper examines intergenerational education mobility across...

This paper investigates how competition for skilled labour from foreign multinational corporations (MNCs) affects the alignment of wages and labour productivity in domestic firms. Using linked employer- employee records, worker data, and firm-level customs declarations from South Africa,...

Effective policy implementation is foundational to development and depends crucially on a competent and committed bureaucracy. Bureaucratic failures can arise from both imperfect capabilities and incentive misalignment-dimensions of state capacity that often coexist and shape policy outcomes...

This paper examines the trade dimensions of the policy instruments employed by the United States to secure critical minerals supply chains. Drawing on policy statements, executive orders, tariff schedules, and six bilateral critical minerals agreements announced in 2025, it assesses how US trade...

Using a novel arbitrage-free dynamic term structure model of nominal and real bond prices that accounts for bond-specific liquidity risk premia, this paper provides estimates of bond investors' inflation expectations and associated inflation risk premia in South African sovereign bonds. The...

This paper explores the forms of taxation practised by Al Qaeda and the Islamic State branches operating in Mali and Niger. It builds on insights from the rebel governance literature and an original conceptualisation of jihadist taxation and its effects. Unlike classic perspectives in the rebel...

Market forces, and notably the role of trade openness, contribute to shaping inequality in South Africa and may limit the inclusiveness of its growth path. Recently, policy reforms may have helped to mitigate these effects. To better understand these developments, we analyse trends in post-tax...

The paper examines the structure of the social protection system in Egypt including its contributory and non-contributory components. It begins by examining the historical evolution of the system, its scale and reach, and its sources of financing. The book then assesses the de jure and de facto...

This paper examines the impact of floods on regional import dynamics in South Africa. Floods can disrupt firms' production activities and thereby hinder their participation in import markets. At the same time, firms may increase imports to compensate for disruptions in domestic supply networks....

How do systemic modes of discrimination-such as a caste system, or racial bias-impact the transmission of intergenerational opportunities in a developing country? What are the mechanisms by which discriminatory norms in labour and marriage markets affect such opportunities? How could we measure...