South Africa's current electricity crises have worsened, placing the country on an uncertain and turbulent economic trajectory. To identify the manufacturing sub-sectors that are most vulnerable to this crises, we use the input-output matrices for the period between 1993 and 2021 to develop a...

The services sector is dominant and continues to experience unprecedented growth in many developing economies. However, in-depth empirical analysis of the drivers ofservicessector growth acceleration is limited. This paper examines and identifies the underlying factors that explain services...

Using the South African Revenue Service and National Treasury firm-level panel data for 2009-17, this paper investigates how global value chain-related trade affects the export performance of manufacturing firms in South Africa. In particular, the paper uses extant classifications of...

Informal contracting institutions constitute an essential part of a country's overall contracting institution, however, the nascent literature examining the effect of contracting institutions on the quality of products a country produces and exports, have paid a limited attention on the role of...

A substantial literature has examined the determinants of support for democracy and although existing work has found a gender gap in democratic attitudes, there have been no attempts to explain it. In this paper we try to understand why females are less supportive of democracy than males in a...

Little investigation has been made to explain why women are less likely than are men to support democracy in sub-Saharan Africa. This gender difference in politics has been found in numerous studies and may hinder the much needed legitimation of democracy in this region. This paper addresses the...

After a decade of research on the relationship between institutions and growth, scholars in this field seem to be divided. Economic institutions perform well in growth regressions and a body of literature argues that this supports the key importance of institutions for development. Other authors...