Die tradisionele beskouing van die agtiende eeuse Kaap as ‘n armoedige bestaans-ekonomie moet heroorweeg word. Deur van 2577 onlangs gedigitaliseerde boede-linventarisse gebruik te maak, toon hierdie artikel dat die gemiddelde Kaapse setlaars-huishouding relatief wel-af was aan die begin van...

The paper discusses some evidence, based on a review of new literature on economic history, about what is referred to as the Sen-hypothesis, that increasing human agency (of both men and women) is a key factor in economic development. It briefly discusses various dimensions of agency (or its...

This paper studies the impact of bank capital regulation on business cycle fluctuations. In particular, we study the procyclical nature of Basel II claimed in the literature. To do so, we adopt the Bernanke et al. (1999) ``financial accelerator" model (BGG), to which we augment a banking sector....

The Cape Colony of the eighteenth century was one of the most prosperous regions in the world. This paper shows that Cape farmers prospered, on average, because of the economies of scale and scope achieved through slavery. Slaves allowed farmers to specialise in agricultural products that were...

The main instrument within the broader framework of tobacco control in South Africa has been the more aggressive use of tobacco taxes which since 1999/2000 have increased from 0.12 cents per cigarette to 0.38c in 2009/10. The primary goal of these policies is to reduce cigarette consumption and...

The paper seeks to determine whether the observation from a constitutional law and public administration perspective, namely that a distinct centralist tendency has become evident in South Africa in recent years, is borne out by fiscal analysis as well. An overview of key legislative, policy and...

Analysts such as Hanushek and Woessman have brought to the fore the deceptiveness of education enrolments, or years of schooling, in growth regressions and the need to consider educational quality. In this paper, a nonlinear programming solution is proposed as a way of normalising to a single...

Although racial segregation has been abolished for 18 years now, schools which served predominantly White students under apartheid remain functional, while those which served Black students remain dysfunctional and unable to impart the necessary numeracy and literacy skills students should be...

Procrastination is an almost archetypal phenomenon of human behaviour, the nature and prevalence of which may have severe implications for the foundations of Microeconomic theory and the rational actor model. This paper aims to assess why and how agents procrastinate in theory and what the...

In this paper we set out to test whether, on sector level, returns series in South Africa exhibit long memory and asymmetries and, more specifically, whether these effects should be accounted for when assessing downside risk. The purpose of this analysis is not to identify the most optimal...