Spillovers from South Africa into the other members of the Souther Africa Customs Union (known as the BLNS for Botstwana, Lesotho, Namibia, and Swaziland) are substantial reflecting sizeable real and financial interlinkages. However, shocks to real GDP growth in South Africa do not seem to...

Following the onset of the global economic crisis in 2008, SACU member countries have witnessed a significant growth slowdown, and a deterioration of their fiscal balances. This paper (i) assesses options for the design of the needed fiscal consolidation, and (ii) discussed medium-term fiscal...

This paper applies the work of Berg and Ostry (2011) to the SACU region, to identify how inequalities have played a role in growth in each of these countries, and elaborates policy options to mitigate the effects of inequalities and foster growth. Lower income inequalities could lead to...

Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, and Swaziland face the serious challenge of adjusting not only to lower Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) transfers because of the global economic crisis, but also to a potential further decline over the medium term. This paper assesses options for the design of...

The paper provides an economic analysis of the impact of HIV/AIDS on the health sector i Southern Africa. It provides indicators for the scale of the impact, including estimates of tr. costs of various forms treatment. In anticipation of increasing numbers of patients with HIV/AIDS-related...

The paper addresses the impact of HIV/AIDS on per capita output and income, with particular emphasis on the role of labor mobility between the formal and informal sectors, and the impact of the epidemic on investment decisions. The study finds that HIV/AIDS affects both the supply of labor and...

Abstract: Both global and regional economic linkages have strengthened substantially over the past quarter century. We employ a dynamic factor model to analyze the implications of these linkages for the evolution of global and regional business cycles. Our model allows us to assess the roles...

We examine how Korea’s capital flows and trade have been affected by the quantitative easing (QE) of the United States and the quantitative and qualitative easing (QQME) of Japan. Korea is an intriguing case due to its borderline position between advanced and emerging market country...

We study the dynamic response of gross capital flows in emerging market economies to different global financial shocks, using a panel vector-autoregressive (PVAR) setting. Our focus lies primarily on the potentially stabilizing role played by domestic investors in offsetting the response of...