This paper investigates ways in which an efficiency model like ‘DEA Window analysis’ can be utilised, under strictly defined conditions, to assess the level of efficiency of automatic fiscal stabilisers (AFS). The size of AFS is obtained through gaps in both revenue and expenditures...

South Africa‘s financial sector is believed to have weathered the contagion and catastrophic effects of the 2008 world wide financial crisis partly on account of a sound regulatory framework and solid macroeconomic policies. In this paper, we seek to measure efficiency and productivity...

In measuring technical and scale efficiency of Tanzanian Saving and Credit Cooperatives we used a sample of 103 audited financial statements during 2011. Data envelopment analysis was employed to explore the efficiency scores. The results show that average scores are 42%, 52% and 76% for...

This paper explores the reasons for the unbalanced growth structure of South Africa. While a number of emerging markets show a high proportion of value added and employment being generated by the service sector, South Africa is one of very few such economies that also show a strong decline in...

Rather than a rigid racial ideology, it is argued that South African apartheid was a pragmatic response of a white oligarchy to changing economic and political constraints. Consequently, the degree to which apartheid principles were applied and enforced by the South African state varied over...

The stylized view of the Dutch Cape Colony (1652-1795) is of a poor, subsistence economy, with little progress in the first 143 years of Dutch rule. New evidence from probate inventory and auction roll records show that previous estimates about wealth at the Cape are inaccurate. In contrast to...

The public healthcare sector in developing countries face many challenges, including weak healthcare systems and under resourced facilities that deliver poor outcomes relative to total healthcare expenditure. Healthcare delivery, access to healthcare and cost containment has the potential for...

Central bank communication is widely recognised as crucial to the implementation of monetary policy. This communication should enhance a central bank’s management of the inflation expectations of the financial markets as well as the general public — the latter being a part of the...

How detrimental is inflation to growth in South Africa? At what level? Motivated by the adoption of inflation targeting by many countries, this paper sets out to empirically determine the threshold level of inflation in South Africa. This study adopts quarterly time series data spanning over the...

In this paper, I investigate the characteristics and poverty status of female- and male-headed households in South Africa using nationally representative household survey data from the October Household Surveys (1997 and 1999) and the General Household Surveys (2004 and 2008). These years...