Entrepreneurship aims to contribute significantly to economic development, a trend that has been progressively growing over time. Nonetheless, female entrepreneurs continue to face substantial challenges, including limited access to financial resources and sociocultural barriers. The influence...

South Africa's wine industry has traditionally concentrated on developed nations as its principal export markets. In recent years, regional markets within East Africa have emerged as promising areas for growth. However, these markets have not been examined, with existing research predominantly...

Performance management systems (PMSs) in private secondary education are vital, and although several tried and tested public sector performance measurement models exist, limited private secondary school performance measurement models exist in South Africa. This study aims to empirically validate...

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 study assesses how pandemic-related job losses and social protection impacted food security in South Africa using five waves of data from the NIDS-CRAM survey of 794 individuals. Job loss increased food insecurity by 5.2% (14%), consistent across five methods and lasting for 12 months....

South Africa's shift to renewable energy has been characterised by significant structural changes, primarily through the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (REIPPPP), which achieved considerable capacity by 2016. Although this green transition aligns with...

Engineering remains a highly gendered and racialised profession in South Africa, shaped by enduring historical inequalities and the imprint of institutionalised exclusion that structures women's experiences of belonging and professional legitimacy. While women's underrepresentation in STEM is...

Despite several policies and legislation enactments to address gender inequality in the post-apartheid South African employment landscape, a significant proportion of female academics still face marginalization and underrepresentation in senior executive positions. This paper aims to investigate...

This study investigated the impact of pricing strategies on the growth and sustainability of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The study employed a quantitative research approach and sampled 132 SMEs operating in a municipality in South Africa. A self-administered, closed-ended questionnaire...

This paper examines the geography of intergenerational income mobility in South Africa across districts and metropolitan municipalities as well as historically disadvantaged former-homelands. South Africa's high inequality has a geographical dimension (spatial inequality), shaped by a long...

This paper investigates the extent to which the historical legacy of apartheid laws explains contemporary misallocation and firm productivity in South Africa. During the apartheid era (1948-1994), job reservations, closed-shop agreements, and minimum-wage policies were implemented to restrict...

South Africa has a relatively well-developed social protection system for a middle-income country. Despite its roots in the country's racially discriminatory past, the system has been repurposed post-apartheid to address deep poverty and severe inequality. This paper explores key characteristics...

How should a developing country such as South Africa respond to the USA's "Liberation Day" Tariffs of April 2025 and subsequent shocks? Combining the GTAP-Dynamic (GDyn) Computable General Equilibrium model with an expanded Decision Support Model (DSM), we simulate five policy response scenarios...

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...

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....

Chronic electricity shortages constrain growth and welfare in many developing countries, where load shedding rations demand. Intermittent renewables can ease shortages, but their effects depend on how infeed timing aligns with scarcity. Using high-frequency data from South Africa and an...

In this paper, we examine the transplantation of British company law into the Cape Colony in the late nineteenth century. The Cape Colony Companies Act of 1892 was like its British counterpart in that it provided minimal investor protection. This meant that promoters were free to choose the...