Whilst much has been said about the employment effects of the privatisation of state-owned enterprises in South Africa, the debate has largely overlooked the impact of these events on the wage levels of those workers that retain their jobs in the restructuring process. This paper estimates...

The idea of a ‘second economy’ has become a feature of recent government economic policy. In this paper we focus on one important element of the second economy – the informal economy. We analyse the nature of the informal economy in South Africa, providing some descriptive statistics and...

Launched in 1995, Spatial Development Initiatives (SDIs) are currently the main vehicle used by the South African government to promote regional development. SDI project(s) purport to be short-term and targeted attempts to stimulate "growth" by creating globally competitive spatial entities, new...

The workplace training dispensation that is evolving in South Africa represents a significant advance over previous initiatives in the country. While it is funded on the basis of payroll levies, the relatively sophisticated institutional structure in the administration of the system has caused...

Through the use of the standard tools of poverty analysis, this paper attempts to firstly measure the minimum financial contribution required from the state to eliminate poverty in the society. Secondly, we measure the absolute and relative household poverty impact of instituting a universal...

This paper seeks to establish the consequences of a changing trade and investment environment for the clothing and textile industry in Southern Africa. The study covers Malawi, Mauritius and Zimbabwe - the three largest producers of textiles and garments outside South Africa. The paper...

Abstract: This paper aims to introduce selected issues from the international literature on skills training into the South African policy forum. Reform of national strategies in skills production has characterised a number of industrial as well as certain developing economies in recent decades....

This study, through an exploratory but promising methodology, provides a tentative analysis of the relationship between HIV, poverty and labour markets. The paper illustrates that the relationship between poverty, labour markets and HIV is not homogenous but multi-dimensional in character. The...

Recent research has found that changing policies and attitudes and improved economic performance have impacted on the labour market dynamics for women and the increased feminisation of the South African labour force since the mid-1990s has been well documented. While employment has increased...

The past two decades have witnessed an unprecedented globalisation of trade in goods and services. This process has been driven, inter alia, by technology, ideology and the availability of relatively cheap energy. By extrapolating this trend, one may expect further integration of world markets...