There has been considerable effort in ascertaining with confidence the trends in income inequality in South Africa. South Africa has traditionally been among the most unequal countries in the world and continues to be so. Surprisingly, levels of inequality have not decreased despite the...

Little credible evidence exists on the effect of material resources on school quality in developing countries. This paper studies the impact of non-personnel funding on educational outcomes exploiting the peculiar way in which these resources are allocated in South Africa. Government funding...

This paper studies the causal effect of electoral systems on the performance of clientelistic vs. programmatic parties. We argue that, contrary to majoritarian systems, proportional systems disfavor clientelistic parties as voters can hardly be pivotal for electing their local patron. We test...

This paper presents a survey experiment in South Africa that focuses on the role of mobilization for demand for redistribution. Previous literature has found that providing information on inequality raises concerns about inequality but need not lead to a change in tax preferences. We argue that...

Political science literature on clientelism has tended to focus primarily on the role of parties and brokers, leaving the demand side of clientelism - the choices of potential clients - relatively unexplored. This paper proposes a formal framework sheding light on the demand side of clientelism....

What effect did the introduction of the Employment Tax Incentive (ETI) have on youth employment probabilities in South Africa in the short run? The ETI came into effect on the 1st of January 2014. Its purpose is to stimulate youth employment levels and ease the challenges that many youth...

We estimate the effect of a teenage birth on the educational attainment of young mothers in Cape Town, South Africa. Longitudinal and retrospective data on youth from the CAPS dataset are used. We control for a number of early life and pre-fertility characteristics. We also reweight our data...

How much volatility is there in earnings in South Africa? The South African labour market has been shown to be a key determinant of welfare, both in terms of poverty and inequality. These are a function of both the high levels of unemployment as well as the wage distribution, conditional on...