, and in the growth of their labour forces. Whereas China - a labour-surplus economy par excellence despite unemployment … historically has been short of labour - is moving towards increased labour surplus in the form of open unemployment. The paper …

of wages to local unemployment. Examining this spatial relationship, we find that the elasticity of wages to local … unemployment rates in South Africa is -0.1, similar to that found in other countries, including the US and the UK. This is striking … because South Africa has a national unemployment rate of over 30%. We find that the wage curve elasticity persists over a much …