Recent cross country growth studies have found that ethnolinguistic fractionalization is an important explanatory variable of long-run growth performance. This paper highlights some limitations of cross country studies by focusing on the time series evidence for South Africa. In presenting...

The paper examines whether endogenous growth processes can be found in middle income country contexts. Estimation proceeds by means of dynamic heterogeneous panel analysis. Empirical evidence finds in favour of positive impacts on total factor productivty growth by Schumpeterian innovative...

The abolition of apartheid should have improved the employment prospects of black South Africans. The reality seems to have been different, with rising unemployment rates. Disentangling the real trends from changes in measurement and sampling design has proved to be difficult. We tackle this...

This paper investigates domestic risk-return behaviour by focussing on the intertemporal relationship between the conditional domestic equity market premium, its conditional variance and its conditional covariance with the international equity market. The paper finds that the domestic equity...

This paper introduces an epistemic model of a boundedly rational agent under the two assumptions that (i) the agent's reasoning process is in accordance with the model but (ii) the agent does not reflect on these reasoning processes. For such a concept of bounded rationality a semantic...

If local communities living adjacent to the elephant see it as a burden, then they cannot be trusted to be its stewards. To assess their valuation of it, a CVM study was conducted for one CAMPFIRE district in Zimbabwe. Respondents were classified according to their preferences over the elephant....

This paper researches the change in regional specialisation and industry concentration in South African (SA) manufacturing 1970-96, and evaluates possible determinants of industry location. No evident trend towards greater regional specialisation or despecialisation emerges over most of the...

The literature on Mergers and Acquisitions activity has espoused various explanations for M&A activity. Some of this captures the nature of defence mechanisms again takeovers. In all the expositions the agency conflicts and degrees of collusion among the claimants to the firm’s...

This paper explores the problem of a social planner willing to improve the welfare of individuals who are unable to compare all available alternatives. The optimal decision trades off the individuals' desire for flexibility versus their aversion towards ambiguous choice situations. We introduce...

Unemployment among semi- and unskilled workers has reached severe proportions (over 50 %) and threatens the political and economic stability of the South African economy. In this paper a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of the South African economy to assess the economy-wide impact of...