Objective: This study provides information regarding trends in alcohol consumption at the household level in South Africa using two datasets. These two datasets, from 1995 and 2000, are the basis of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in South Africa, although they contain information on alcoholic...

Estimates of participation or expenditure elasticities depend upon the assumptions made regarding the observation of zero expenditure at the household level. This research examines two single-hurdle models across two commodities for which nearly two-thirds of the observations are zero. The...

The monetary policy transmission mechanism can broadly be categorised into three separate channels: the interest rate channel, the credit channel and the other asset price channel. This paper seeks to examine the bank-lending channel of the credit channel of monetary policy in South Africa by...

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has of late been revered as the solution to a great deal of the developing world’s problems. This paper seeks to examine the macroeconomic link between foreign direct investment in South Africa, and its resultant impact on potential output. Cointegration...

In order to address practical questions in credit portfolio management it is necessary to link the cyclical or systematic components of firm credit risk with the firm’s own idiosyncratic credit risk as well as the systematic credit risk component of every other exposure in the portfolio. This...

Estimates of participation or expenditure elasticities depend upon the assumptions made regarding the observation of zero expenditure at the household level. This research examines two single-hurdle models across two commodities for which nearly two-thirds of the observations are zero. The...

The South African Government announced, in the 2008 Budget Review, the intention to tax the generation of electricity from non-renewable sources with 2c/kWh. This tax is to be collected by the producers/generators of electricity at the source. The intention of the tax is to serve a dual purpose...

Recent empirical evidence on the direct link of inflation targeting and inflation volatility is at best mixed. However, comparing inflation volatility across alternative monetary policy regimes within a country based on conventional ways, used in previous studies, begs the question. The question...

In developing countries, where health insurance is not a commonly purchased nancial instrument, recent debates have revolved around extending health insurance coverage to a wider range of the population, primarily via compulsory insurance schemes. However, these debates rarely consider the...

South Africa is in the grip of an electricity crisis marked by a euphemism known as “load shedding”. The demand for electricity has grown to the point that the supply reserve margin is often under threat, necessitating the electricity supplier to cut supply to some areas for various periods...