1,721,052 research outputs found
The impact of re-industrialization on economic growth and employment in South Africa
Get PDFMini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2017.The South African economy has an enormous task of addressing the triple challenges
of high unemployment, poverty and inequality. There is a growing concern that sluggish
economic performance and these challenges are putting the countryÕs young democracy
at risk. There is a belief that manufacturing sector growth spurs economic growth and
employment. Re-industrialization is an important policy to promote economic growth and
the government has adopted a National Industrial Policy Framework to promote and
facilitate re-industrialization. This study is an attempt to enhance and inform the
robustness of the industrial policy design and implementation in South Africa.
The study utilized a Vector Error Correction model to evaluate the impact of reindustrialization
on economic growth and employment in South Africa. The sectoral
output and employment data series were obtained from Statistics South Africa. The
output and employment data covered the periods 1993 first quarter to 2016 fourth quarter
and 2012 third quarter to 2017 first quarter respectively. The results revealed that the
manufacturing sector output growth had a significant impact on trade, transport and
mining sectors while the manufacturing sectorÕs employment growth does not
necessarily guarantee employment growth in other sectors of the economy with the
exception of the transport sector.pa2018Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS)MBAUnrestricte
Testing for bubbles in the BRICS stock markets
Get PDFPURPOSE : The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether there exist multiple bubbles in the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) stock markets. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH : In this study, the authors apply the generalized sup Augmented Dickey-Fuller test, a new recursive test proposed by Phillips et al. (2015) and use monthly data on stock price-dividend ratio. FINDINGS : The empirical results indicate that there exist multiple bubbles in the stock markets of the BRICS. Further, the dates of the bubbles also correspond to specific events in the stock markets of these economies. This finding has important economic and policy implications. ORIGINALITY/VALUE : The authors declare that this paper is original and has not been published by another journal previously.http://www.emeraldinsight.com/0144-3585.htmhttp://www.emeraldinsight.com/loi/jeshj2017Economic
Sensitivity and integration of efficiency estimates from input distance functions and stochastic production frontiers : application to maize production in Benue State Nigeria
Get PDFThesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011.The selection of a suitable model for efficiency analysis is one of the most important issues in policy analysis. Given the recent interest in the use of distance functions as alternative representation of production technology, this study compares the empirical performances of the parametric stochastic input distance function to its nonparametric counterpart, data envelopment analysis. A further comparison is made between the alternatives of a distance and production function frontiers. It further integrates efficiency scores from the consistent approaches in order to evaluate the performance of the sampled farm households and for analysis of policy impacts on technical, allocative and cost efficiency. The usefulness of the proposed methodology is applied to smallholder maize production in Benue State Nigeria. The maize subsector has featured in a number of Nigeria’s policy initiatives, the most current of which involves doubling of its production and productivity through promotion of improved technologies such as hybrid seed, inorganic fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, and better management practices. Despite the policy initiatives, maize productivity has remained low raising questions about the efficiency of resource use by farmers and the benefits of Nigeria’s technology policy. The study used data obtained from a field survey for the 2008/2009 agricultural year. A multistage stratified sampling technique was employed in selection of respondents. A total of 240 maize farm households were randomly selected and interviewed using structured questionnaires. Results from all the approaches indicated considerable technical, allocative and cost inefficiency under both traditional and improved maize technology. Technical efficiency estimates range from 80 to 87 percent. Allocative efficiency estimates range from 53 to 74 percent while cost efficiency estimates range from 45 to 62 percent. The results from all the approaches indicated that inefficiency in maize production in Benue State is dominated by cost inefficiency suggesting the immense potential of enhancing production through improvement in overall efficiency. The overall consistency check shows that technical, allocative and cost efficiency measures from the three distance functions were consistent whereas similar conclusions could not hold when these were compared to the production frontier especially for technical efficiency estimates. Given the consistency of results from the parametric and non-parametric distance functions, an integrated input distance model was developed for providing final efficiency estimates and analysis of policy impacts. The results show that both traditional and improved technology users were technically, allocatively and cost inefficient. The average technical, allocative and cost efficiency are 84.2, 65.7 and 54.5 percent, respectively implying that there is a possibility of raising maize production by 45.5 percent through overall efficiency improvement. Under the integrated approach, the study revealed that hybrid seeds, inorganic fertilizer and conservation practices have positive and significant impact on farm efficiency. Other determinants of efficiency include education, age, household size, land size, credit, and membership in a farmer group. The findings justify the need for further public investment in maize technology development and proper implementation of the relevant policies in order to enhance the efficiency with which maize has been produced thereby increasing its productivity, food security and farm incomes and subsequently reducing poverty in Nigeria.Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Developmentunrestricte
The self-fulfilling prophecy of uncertainty : a study on the impact of uncertainty and contagion on economic outcomes and policy
Get PDFThesis (PhD (Economics))--University of Pretoria, 2022.Economic globalisation has ushered in the integration of world financial markets, and the degree of interconnectedness has never been greater. In the face of a resurgence in global risks from trade, geopolitical tensions and global health risks, such as the outbreak of COVID-19, there has been an increasing focus on the impact of uncertainty on economic outcomes. Overall, uncertainty has been found to have significant negative impact on economies with the potential to compound recession and hinder economic recovery. The principal objective of this study is to address the impact of uncertainty and contagion on economic outcomes and policy in the South African context through a broad focus on the key markets – including the stock market, the currency market and the goods market – with particular focus on non-linear modelling and asymmetric effects, where the sign and size of a shock or uncertainty within markets have different impacts.
In order to meet this objective, this study first investigates the interdependence and volatility transmissions and contagion between the stock and currency markets through a bivariate Exponential Generalised Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity (EGARCH) framework. This approach is used to allow for asymmetric effects of the shocks, allowing both the size and the sign of the shock to have different impacts. The impact of COVID-19 on the transmission mechanism is also explored. The outcomes from this analysis provide strong evidence in support of the “stock-orientated” approach, where significant price and volatility spillovers propagate from the stock market into the foreign exchange market, whilst evidence of the “flow-orientated” approach is seen in the second moment, and significant shock and asymmetric spillovers from the exchange to the stock market are found. The results support the asymmetric and long-range persistence volatility spillover effect and show strong evidence of contagion between stock and foreign exchange markets. These spillovers became more pronounced during the COVID-19 pandemic, confirming heightened contagion in these markets during periods of crisis.
Secondly, attention turns to the goods market. The inflation-inflation uncertainty nexus is investigated through GARCH and GARCH-in-mean (GARCH-M) models to establish whether inflation uncertainty is a self-fulfilling prophecy, i.e., does higher inflation uncertainty leads to higher inflation and vice versa? The empirical outcomes from this study suggest the existence of a bidirectional relationship between inflation and inflation uncertainty, with stronger evidence in support of the Friedman-Ball hypothesis which states that heightened levels of inflation induce higher uncertainty about future inflation and weaker evidence in favour of the Cukierman-Meltzer hypothesis that proposes a reverse causation. The study also finds that inflation targeting has contributed significantly to reducing the level of inflation and inflation uncertainty. The Rossi-Wang (2019) time-varying Granger causality testing, which is robust in the presence of instabilities, further provides interesting insight into the relationship notably that both the Friedman-Ball and Cukierman-Meltzer hypotheses break down during the inflation targeting period, which further hints towards the efficacy of inflation targeting as monetary policy framework.
Finally, the thesis determines how high and low states of uncertainty in the three key domestic markets – the stock market, currency market and goods market – and uncertainty in the global market impact the effectiveness of monetary policy in South Africa. High and low uncertainty states in the markets are examined by employing sign-restriction and the Self-Exciting Interacted VAR (SEIVAR) analysis. This framework is particularly appealing in that it allows for estimating the economy’s response conditional on uncertainty states in the different markets. Impulse response analysis reveals that monetary policy is less effective in high uncertainty states in the different markets. Overall, the study attempts to inform policy in the face of uncertainty.National Research Foundation
Unique grant Number: 116264EconomicsPhD (Economics)Unrestricte
Assessing technical efficiency of provincial Health and education sectors in South Africa
Get PDFThesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2020.The study used 12 Data Envelopment Analysis models with six 2017/18 analytical variables. The mean technical efficiency scores for the health sector ranged from 35.7 to 87.2 per cent and the education sector’s average technical efficiency scores from 45.9 to 97.9 per cent. At worst, Gauteng was efficient with eight provinces needing to save R46.4 billion. At best, only Mpumalanga, Western Cape and Free State were inefficient with potential to reduce 6 940 non-core health workers and save R61 million without compromising the prevailing service standards. These savings could also be invested in core healthcare infrastructure and personnel. Insofar as education is concerned, KwaZulu-Natal was the most efficient. At best, only KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo and Northern Cape were efficient. The inefficient provinces could reduce education expenditure by R24.7 billion while maintaining the same educational outcomes with room to train existing and appoint additional 9 684 teachers.National Research FoundationUniversity of PretoriaNational TreasuryEconomicsPhD Tax PolicyUnrestricte
Effect of Fiscal and Monetary Policies on Economic Activities in South Africa: The Role of Policy Uncertainty
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Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Causality between economic policy uncertainty and real housing returns in emerging economies: A cross-sample validation approach
Get PDFThis paper examines whether economic policy uncertainty (EPU) causes real housing returns in 8 emerging economies for which EPU data are available namely: Brazil, Chile, China, India, Ireland, Russia, South Africa and South Korea. Quarterly data were used for the analysis. The study uses cross-sample validation (CSV) Granger causality approach which obviates the need to partition the data into an in-sample and out-of-sample periods when limited data are available as in this study. Results based on the CSV full sample period indicate no evidence of economic policy uncertainty Granger causing real housing returns except for Chile and China. However, based on CSV rolling window results, there is evidence of time varying causality in all the countries except India. The implications of these findings are drawn
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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