While the importance of the banking sector on various fundamental economic variables is well-documented in the literature, little is known about the relationship between the bank market structure and access to finance for opaque firms, particularly in developing economies such as South Africa....

This paper investigates the impact of inflation in different states of unemployment: evidence with the Phillips curve in South Africa. The contribution of this paper is to examine the impact of inflation on different states of unemployment in South Africa. The Paper employs Markov-switching...

South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world. This paper examines the effect of weather shocks on various types of crime. Using a 12-year panel data set at monthly resolution on the police ward level, we observe a short-term effect of temperatures on violent crime, supporting the...

Concerns about the human effects of climate change have contributed to forecasts of how populations in drought-prone, and flood-prone areas would respond to these events. Empirical studies have predicted that human migration has been among the critical resilient strategy in responding to the...

This paper evaluates the impact of a sudden and unexpected nation-wide alcohol sales ban in South Africa. We find that this policy causally reduced injury-induced mortality in the country by at least 14% during the five weeks of the ban. We argue that this estimate constitutes a lower bound on...

The relationship between inequality and crime has been of long-standing interest to social scientists of various disciplines. While theorical work from both economics and sociology postulates a positive link between the two, the empirical evidence is rather inconclusive and typically focuses on...

This paper evaluates the impact of a sudden and unexpected nation-wide alcohol sales ban in South Africa. We find that this policy causally reduced injury-induced mortality in the country by at least 14% during the five weeks of the ban. We argue that this estimate constitutes a lower bound on...

This study examines the relationship between the financial performance and working capital management practices of South African retail firms listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The study sample comprised a panel of 16 South African retail firms for the period 2010-2019. A fixed-effects...

This study analyses the performance of macroeconomic policy in South Africa in 2007- 2020 and outlines challenges for policy in the coming decade. After remarkable economic growth in 1997-07, South Africa's progress slowed dramatically in 2009 with the global financial crisis. Real GDP growth...

Extractive industries form an important part of the economy for many developing countries, but their impact on growth and welfare remains understudied. With global efforts to transition to net-zero carbon emissions in the coming decades, understanding the local impacts of the extractives sector...

This paper reviews South Africa's monetary policy since 2007 and makes recommendations towards improving the inflation-targeting framework currently in place. Following a surge in inflation into double digits in 2007/08, the South African Reserve Bank managed to guide inflation in line with the...

This paper seeks to identify the differentiated impacts of the crisis on specific groups of informal workers. The analysis draws on official nationally representative labour force surveys collected quarterly by South Africa's national statistical agency (Statistics South Africa). Based on an...

Business angels (BAs) and venture capitalists (VCs) are important sources of finance for entrepreneurs in emerging markets for raising start-up and growth capital. Recognising that entrepreneurial investment evaluation decision-making is a highly complex process, and that there are limited...

Whether it is a government research institution, a public-private partnership, or a private enterprise, the South African biotechnology industry requires funding for the biotechnology industry. Our goal with this research is to look into the role of venture capital (VC) in financing biotech...

This study investigates whether eligibility for antiretroviral therapy (ART) of HIV positive parents improved their children's educational attainment in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, employing a regression discontinuity design. We find that there is a positive impact of ART eligibility on...

Up-to-date, nationally representative household income/expenditure data are crucial to estimating poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic and to policy-making more broadly, but South Africa lacks such data. We present new pandemic poverty estimates, simulating incomes in prepandemic household...

Globally, corporate cash holdings have risen since the 1980s. In South Africa, some commentators have accused corporations of engaging in an 'investment strike', while others see corporate liquidity as a precaution against systemic uncertainty. We use the unique South African Revenue...

This paper evaluates the impact of a sudden and unexpected nation-wide alcohol sales ban in South Africa. We find that this policy causally reduced injury-induced mortality in the country by at least 14%. We argue that this estimate constitutes a lower bound on the true impact of alcohol on...

South Africa has one of the highest crime rates in the world. This paper examines the effect of weather shocks on various types of crime. Using a 12-year panel data set at monthly resolution on the police ward level, we observe a short-term effect of temperatures on violent crime, supporting the...

This paper evaluates the impact of a sudden and unexpected nation-wide alcohol sales ban in South Africa. We find that this policy causally reduced injury-induced mortality in the country by at least 14% during the five weeks of the ban. We argue that this estimate constitutes a lower bound on...

This paper reviews South Africa's monetary policy since 2007 and makes recommendations towards improving the inflation-targeting framework currently in place. Following a surge in inflation into double digits in 2007/08, the South African Reserve Bank managed to guide inflation in line with the...

Systemic susceptibility highlights the extent to which a banking sector is sensitive to negative shocks. Policymakers and regulators' objective is to avoid financial crises, and even though they can somewhat control local conditions, internationally transmitted crises are difficult to tackle....

The study explored the impact of maritime transport financing on trade in South Africa. Using the Autoregressive Distribution lag model, we examine the impact of maritime transport financing on total trade in South Africa during the period 1994 to 2019. The results confirm a long and short-run...

This paper examines how the courts in three developing countries (Kenya, South Africa, and India) have addressed the tension between patent rights on pharmaceutical products and the right to health. The paper begins by examining the nature of the relationship between patent rights and the right...

Extractive industries form an important part of the economy for many developing countries, but their impact on growth and welfare remains understudied. With global efforts to transition to net-zero carbon emissions in the coming decades, understanding the local impacts of the extractives sector...

This study analyses the performance of macroeconomic policy in South Africa in 2007- 2020 and outlines challenges for policy in the coming decade. After remarkable economic growth in 1997-07, South Africa's progress slowed dramatically in 2009 with the global financial crisis. Real GDP growth...

Whether it is a government research institution, a public-private partnership, or a private enterprise, the South African biotechnology industry requires funding for the biotechnology industry. Our goal with this research is to look into the role of venture capital (VC) in financing biotech...