Existing South African work on firm-level data has been limited by access to large datasets that track firms over time. This paper overcomes this by analysing a new dataset of the population of manufacturing firms that are matched to their export transactions. South African firm-level exporting...

This paper uses newly available firm-level tax data to evaluate the market structure in South African manufacturing sectors in the period 2010-12. To describe the market structure we compute markups for South African manufacturing firms and concentration indexes for 4-digit manufacturing...

The manufacturing sector is an important source of productivity growth and exports. Manufacturing firms are generally more productive than firms in the agricultural or services sectors and are an important source of job creation. Little is known about the productivity performance of the sector...

This paper contributes to the understanding of the linkages between exporting, labour demand, and wages in South Africa. We disentangle labour market differences between exporters and non-exporters and find that exporters employ more people and pay higher wages. Given these higher wages we...

Using firm-level tax administrative data from 2010 to 2017, we study the impact of Chinese import penetration on the performances of manufacturing firms in South Africa, and whether firms investing in capabilities development are more resilient to such competitive pressure. Specifically, by...

Misallocation of labour and capital can greatly reduce aggregate productivity. In this study, we use tax administrative data to examine the extent of resource misallocation in the South African context. In addition, we zoom in on how different government incentives affect the allocation (or...

Countries' economic complexity, and the associated diversification and sophistication of their exports, is a key determinant of economic growth. Understanding how South African firms learn to export more sophisticated products is, therefore, an important policy issue. Using administrative data...

This paper investigates the effect of innovation on employment growth at the firm level in South Africa. Innovation is typically associated with better export performance at the firm level due to productivity enhancements and new products. However, the link between innovation and employment is...

In South Africa, the manufacturing sector -- important for growth and employment creation -- has shown declining growth, poor productivity performance, decreased labour demand, and increased imports of intermediate goods (offshoring activities). Offshoring influences jobs and wages differently...

Using comprehensive, anonymized tax administrative data for the 2008-14 period, we examine firm-level productivity in South Africa. Measures of firm-level productivity are included in a spatial autoregressive model that assesses spillovers from total factor productivity originating from...