Economic growth in South Africa since 1994

South Africa's democratic transition in 1994 created expectations of a dramatic turnaround in the economic performance. Trade and financial sanctions and internal political opposition to the apartheid government had contributed to the poorest ten-year growth performance (1984 - 1993) since the Second World War and the removal of these constraints was widely expected to transform the country's economic performance. This paper measures the realised performance of the economy over this decade along a number of dimensions, including: economic growth, its constituent parts and proximate causes and economic stability.