Why does a state like Peru, dedicated to fulfilling development goals and sustained good macroeconomic performance, appear incapable of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic? Using the case of maternal mortality, this paper argues that the tremendous impact of the pandemic is rooted in the adoption...

In this paper we study the effects of various tax schedule discontinuities on the behavior of small firms using high-quality and population-wide tax register data from South Africa. We use the bunching method to analyse how these discontinuities affect the firm-size distribution. We first...

Although the manufacturing sector is known to have a unique role in structural transformation, the industries without smokestacks that include tradable services (e.g., IT, tourism, transport), horticulture, and agro-industry can provide new opportunities for export development in low-income...

As Africa continues to attract record numbers of international arrivals, there are industry undercurrents that influence the continent's participation in tourism value chains. African tourism is characterized by high foreign demand, which elevates the position of global lead firms and increases...

The arrival of European settlers at the Cape in 1652 marked the beginning of what would become an extremely unequal society. Comparative analysis reveals that certain endowments exist in societies that experience a 'persistence of inequality'. This paper shows that the emphasis on endowments may...

The United Nations Millennium Declaration commits to halving extreme poverty between 2000 and 2015. The South African government has set a goal of halving poverty by 2014, although the meaning of this goal has not yet been defined. This article specifies government's stated target of halving...

This study represents the first attempt at an integrated approach to assessing the potential impacts of climate change on the national economy of South Africa via a number of (but not necessarily all) impact channels. The study focuses on outcomes by about 2050. The results show the multiple...

South Africa has a nascent biofuels industry and emerging regulatory framework, and although water scarcity limits local supply potential, that of the southern African region appears substantial. This paper describes the results and modelling approach of an assessment of potential biofuel demand...

We describe the construction of a series of mini Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs) for the period 1993-2013 in current and constant prices. A key feature of these SAMs is that they are all in exactly the same format across years as well as in terms of current and constant prices. In order to...

The animal feed to poultry value chain in the southern African region has seen rapid demand growth owing to increases in urbanization. This growth has been accompanied by the increase in co-ordinated investments by large, predominantly South African, firms across the region. We examine the...