In the late 1990s the South African Department of Education implemented two policies that were meant to reduce the large number of over-age learners in the school system: schools were no longer allowed to accept students who were more than two years older than the correct grade-age and students...

In the late 1990s the South African Department of Education implemented two policies that were meant to reduce the large number of over-age learners in the school system: schools were no longer allowed to accept students who were more than two years older than the correct grade-age and students...

The question about the productivity of slavery is a strongly debated issue, for example in the USA the seminal work by Engerman and Fogel (1974), “Time on the Crossâ€, sparked a flurry of publications debating the issue from different angles. The debate about the economic worth of...

In the absence of longitudinal data that track individuals over an extended period of time, information on childhood socio-economic status can be provided by questions that ask adults to recall their parents’ education or their economic status at childhood. The usefulness of these data,...

Losing a household member is usually negatively associated with welfare, especially if that person is a breadwinner. Coping methods include disposal of assets to generate cash flow, while other households increase their labour supply. This paper considers a specific case in a pre-industrial...

This paper analyses the economic viability of slavery in the Cape Colony of southern Africa. It has been extensively documented that the affluence of elites was built on the importation of slaves. However, the Dutch East India Company or Verengide Oost-indische Companje (VOC), which...

One hundred years after the implementation of the 1913 Land Act, the subject of land reform and rural development are still at the forefront of public discourse within South Africa. Much of the literature suggests that post-apartheid interventions have not been successful at improving...

One reason for the relatively poor development performance of many countries around the world today may be the high levels of inequality during and after colonisation. Evidence from colonies in the Americas suggests that skewed initial factor endowments could create small elites that own a...

Earnings functions form the basis of numerous labour market analyses. Non-response (particularly among higher earners) may, however, lead to the exclusion of a significant proportion of South Africa's earnings base. Earnings brackets built into surveys intend to maintain response rates....