Women entrepreneurs are increasingly recognised as pivotal contributors to economic growth, poverty alleviation, and employment generation, particularly in developing economies like South Africa. This study explores the contributing and constraining factors that shape the future of women's...

The exponential growth in popularity of ETFs over the last three decades has solidified ETFs as an essential component of many investors' portfolios. Investor sentiment is one of the factors that influence market returns of ETFs during times of market volatility. This article highlights the gap...

The goal of this study is to look into the dynamic relationship between stock prices, foreign portfolio investment, and financial development in the South African economy. Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) provided quarterly time series data from 1960 (Q1) to 2024 (Q2). This study uses a...

Financial inclusion is an important enabler of economic development and aligns with several United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. In most sub-Saharan African countries, financial inclusion efforts take place in the presence of concentrated and bank-dominated systems. This study...

The impact of exchange rates is a significant concern affecting trade in the SADC region. This study's purpose is to assess the threshold effects of exchange rates on agricultural exports from SA to SADC from 2010 to 2022. A panel threshold estimation technique is applied to assess the exchange...

A new Government of National Unity (GNU) has been in place since June 2024, which the markets have welcomed. The GNU faces difficult challenges: declining GDP per capita, high unemployment, poverty and inequality, and rising public debt and debt service, which crowd out other urgent spending...

The co-movement of multi-asset markets in emerging markets has become an important determinant for investors seeking diversified portfolios and enhanced portfolio returns. Despite this, studies have failed to examine the determinants of the co-movement of multi-asset markets such as investor...

The effects of minimum wages on workers and firms depend on enforcement and compliance. While most research examines local determinants, this paper explores whether international market enforcement influences minimum wage impacts. In South Africa farmers exporting to the EU must comply with...

Aggregate consumption typically exceeds 60 per cent of GDP and should be pivotal in central bank policy models. Most use semi-structural macro-models, yet consumption is usually inadequately specified. We use a systems approach to estimate new equations for South African consumption, house...

This study advances global understanding by introducing asymmetric structure into the causality between economic complexity and natural resource wealth in resource-rich countries, using the case studies of Nigeria and South Africa covering 1970-2021. This approach reveals hidden causality in the...

Despite advancements in renewable energy and technological innovation, significant gaps remain in the empirical literature, especially on gender-specific employment and wages. Coupling with the growing global shift towards renewable energy and technological innovation, motivated by the need to...

The dynamic impact of financial market capitalisation on South Africa's unemployment and economic growth is empirically explored in this study using the finance-augmented Solow model framework. South Africa's high rate of structural unemployment and its robust financial market, which is at the...

South Africa is one of the most unequal economies globally. In this paper, we examine the design of its personal income tax (PIT), with a focus on its redistributive function. We apply the Pfähler decomposition method to analyse the redistributive effects of key components of the South African...

This study investigates systemic risk, return patterns, and diversification within the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) during the COVID-19 pandemic, utilizing data-centric approaches and the ARMA-GARCH vine copula-based conditional value-at-risk (CoVaR) model. By comparing three investment...

South Africa's green transition will have major implications for its workforce. This note presents five strategies to prepare the workforce for the green transition. The note explores the implications of the green transition on labor and skills needs in South Africa, and assesses the readiness...

The new political context emerging from the May 2024 elections provides a unique opportunity for South Africa. The alignment of economic and political incentives, in the sense that improving the economy is essential for gaining political power, offers a platform to launch a decisive...

In tomorrow's world, the winners will inevitably be those who possess the knowledge to innovate and adapt to increasingly rapid technological advancements. In contrast, those who lack this knowledge will fall behind. There is consensus among policymakers that a well-functioning education system...

The new political context emerging from the May 2024 elections provides a unique opportunity for South Africa. The alignment of economic and political incentives, in the sense that improving the economy is essential for gaining political power, offers a platform to launch a decisive...

The new political context emerging from the May 2024 elections provides a unique opportunity for South Africa. The alignment of economic and political incentives, in the sense that improving the economy is essential for gaining political power, offers a platform to launch a decisive...

The new political context emerging from the May 2024 elections provides a unique opportunity for South Africa. The alignment of economic and political incentives, in the sense that improving the economy is essential for gaining political power, offers a platform to launch a decisive...

The new political context emerging from the May 2024 elections provides a unique opportunity for South Africa. The alignment of economic and political incentives, in the sense that improving the economy is essential for gaining political power, offers a platform to launch a decisive...

This paper investigates the effect of commodity price shocks in a commodity-exporting small open economy, and the role of fiscal policy in transmitting these shocks to the rest of the economy. Using South African data, we first estimate an empirical model using a Bayesian vector autoregression...

Sin taxes are increasingly being used to discourage the consumption of goods perceived to harm individuals and society. This paper examines the impact of South Africa's Health Promotion Levy (HPL)-the first sugar tax implemented in Africa-on the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) in...

Many observers see the Covid-19 crisis as marking a major shift in neoliberal globalization. We analyze this question from the perspective of South Africa. We argue that the 2020 crisis has not precipitated a major shift as much as it has rapidly accelerated trends which were already under way...