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...

In the late 1990s the South African Department of Education implemented two policies that were meant to reduce the large number of over-age learners in the school system: schools were no longer allowed to accept students who were more than two years older than the correct grade-age and students...

Nationalisation is high on the policy agenda in South Africa. This paper considers the case for nationalising the local mining sector from an evidence-based perspective. The relevant evidence is derived from theoretical considerations and related to the known features of the South African mining...

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...

This paper analyses trends in hours worked from South African household survey data for the period 1997 – 2011. The purpose of the paper is fourfold. First, the paper provides an overview on the trends in hours worked of formal sector employees, by various demographic and work characteristics....

Since 1960 South Africa has seen a steep fall in fertility levels and currently the total fertility rate is the lowest on the African continent. Given the high prevailing levels of fertility in African countries, a better understanding of the factors behind the fertility transition can be...

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...

Highly convex estimates of average returns to education commonly found in South Africa are usually rationalised as being the result of a surplus of unskilled workers and a shortage of skilled workers in the economy (Keswell & Poswell, 2004). However, due to the absence of appropriate micro level...