Resource-based industrialisation in Southern Africa: Domestic policies,corporate strategies and regional dynamics

ABSTRACT

This article analyses policies and strategies adopted by Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe in order to develop linkage industries from the mineral sector. Whilst Southern Africa has a strongly integrated regional value chain for equipment and services related to mining, linkage development strategies in the three countries under examination have been formulated within narrow domestic frameworks. The evidence suggests that the success or failure of a resource-based industrialisation approach is country and sector specific, requiring the deployment of different and appropriately tailored policy instruments. Our research uncovered important cross-country variations in terms of opportunities created by specific mineral commodities, ambition and scope of industrial and linkage development strategies, and institutional capabilities to ensure enforcement and coherence with other policies.     

The Revenue–Expenditure Nexus: The Experience of 13 African Countries

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to investigate the causal relationship between government revenue and government expenditure for 13 African countries within a multivariate framework using a modified version of the Granger causality test due to Toda and Yamamoto (1995) . The empirical evidence suggests that there was a bi‐directional causality running between expenditure and revenue for Mauritius, Swaziland and Zimbabwe; no causality in any direction for Botswana, Burundi and Rwanda; unidirectional causality running from revenue to expenditure for Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Mali and Zambia; and a uni‐directional causality running from expenditure to revenue for Burkina Faso only.     

Unemployment in Africa: A Fractional Integration Approach

This paper estimates long‐memory models to analyse the stochastic behaviour of unemployment in eleven African countries (Botswana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia) from the 1960s until 2010. The empirical results provide very strong evidence of lack of mean reversion in all series under examination. This suggests that hysteresis models are the most relevant for the African experience (not surprisingly, given the rigidities in their labour markets). Therefore in such countries shocks hitting the unemployment series will have permanent effects, and policy makers should take appropriate action to reverse the effects of negative shocks.     

International Financial Relations Under the Current Float: Evidence from Panel Data

This paper uses multi-country data for the period 1973–1994 to investigate five key equilibrium conditions in international finance—purchasing power parity, the Fisher equation, uncovered interest parity, and the equity-return analogues of the latter two. The results are largely consistent with theoretical expectations. Over the long run, purchasing power parity, uncovered interest parity and the Fisher effect prove to be rather good first approximations. The equity-return relations, though somewhat less so are nevertheless much better behaved than past studies would lead one to expect. Average rates of equity returns keep pace with inflation within countries in almost all instances; across countries, they are positively correlated with average rates of inflation. This is particularly the case when the data period is extended to include earlier decades.     

THE ROLE OF THE EXCHANGE RATE IN A NEW KEYNESIAN DSGE MODEL FOR THE SOUTH AFRICAN ECONOMY

We build a small open economy New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model for South Africa similar to Steinbach et al. We abandon their assumption of complete risk sharing with the foreign economy, and introduce country risk shocks to allow deviations from uncovered interest rate parity. These changes allow us to include the exchange rate as an observable variable in the estimation of the model. Using forecast error variance decompositions and historical decompositions, we show that country risk shocks have sizable effects on the South African business cycle. We also explore the optimal monetary policy implications of our model within the context of Taylor rules.     

LONG MEMORY IN SOUTHERN AFRICAN STOCK MARKETS

The paper examines long memory in equity returns and volatility for stock markets in Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe using the ARFIMA‐FIGARCH model in order to assess the efficiency of these markets in processing information. The findings are diverse. Significant long memory is demonstrated in the equity returns of Botswana; while, in South Africa this result is not statistically different from zero. For Zimbabwe returns are characterised by an anti‐persistent process. Furthermore, all the markets investigated provide evidence of long memory in volatility with the exception of Botswana where there is no evidence of volatility persistence and hence the return from taking risk in this market cannot be predicted on the basis of previous values.     

Market-based incentives in South Africa and Zambia: A comparative analysis of the clean development mechanism

The clean development mechanism (CDM) is intended to serve as a market-based incentive that is both efficient and cost-effective for eligible developing countries. The analysis contained in this article explores why, in theory, such an attractive incentive opportunity has been so under-utilised in sub-Saharan Africa. The paper compares the experience of the CDM in South Africa and Zambia. These two Southern African countries were selected because of their varying levels of statehood, South Africa being an emerging, middle-income economy while Zambia is classified as a least developed country. General challenges affecting the CDM were identified in the literature to be awareness, capacity, eligibility and access to finance. The paper then compares how these overarching issues specifically impact the CDM experience in South Africa and Zambia. The paper finds that common complexities relating to the CDM have varying implications for eligible host countries at different levels of statehood.     

The impact of economic fundamentals on stock markets in southern Africa

The issue of whether stock markets reflect economic fundamentals or speculative bubbles is an important one for their potential role in allocating capital, and relates to a policy issue of whether stock markets should be encouraged in developing countries. This article examines the impact of both domestic and foreign economic factors on real stock market returns in three southern African stock markets – South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana, from 1985-95 – using cointegration and error correction techniques. It finds that, while in all cases stock markets are influenced by domestic economic growth, there are no common patterns beyond this. The influence of other domestic and economic variables depends on the size, openness and market-orientation of the individual economies, as well as the size and liquidity of the various stock exchanges. Where foreign economic variables are important, they appear to be those related to trade, rather than international capital flows, indicating that there is little integration of these capital markets, whether regionally or internationally.     

The Southern African customs union: A reappraisal

The paper attempts to evaluate, as far as possible quantitatively, the costs and benefits to the countries of the ‘Southern African periphery’ (Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland) of participation with South Africa in the current customs union agreement. On balancing the agreement's measurable effects (on industrial development, exports, government revenue and the cost of living) against one another, it appears that on sanguine assumptions only, there would be a substantial benefit to Botswana and a much more moderate benefit to Lesotho if the customs union were dismantled and replaced by separately protected national markets. Such a calculation, however, neglects what may be the most important benefit and cost to the ‘peripheral’ countries of leaving the customs union, namely the increase of ‘economic independence’ and the risk of South African retaliation respectively: themes which are explored in the final section.     

Exchange Rate Expectations,the Forward Exchange Rate Bias and Risk Premia in Target Zones

Expected rates of depreciation within the target zone for the exchange rates of four Nordic countries during 1979–1989 are estimated. Combining these with expected rates of devaluation estimated by Edin and Vredin (1993) we obtain time-series of the overall expected exchange rate change. We can thus construct time-series of foreign exchange risk premia and expectational errors, following which we decompose the forward exchange rate bias into portions attributable to expectational errors and/or risk premia. The conclusion is that time-varying risk premia appear to be the dominant cause of deviations from uncovered interest parity while the role of expectational errors is less clear.     

Exchange Rate Risk and Interest Rate: A Case Study for Turkey

This paper examines the effect of exchange rate risk on interest rates within the uncovered interest rate parity condition for Turkey. When the interest rate is measured with the Treasury auction interest rate and the exchange rate risk is measured with the conditional variance of the exchange rate, then we found that there is a positive relation between the exchange rate risk and interest rate with the data from December 1986 to January 2001.     

LIQUIDITY AND THE INFORMATIONAL EFFICIENCY OF AFRICAN STOCK MARKETS

The hypothesis that a stock market price index follows a random walk is tested for 11 African stock markets, Botswana, Côte d'Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia and Zimbabwe using joint variance ratio tests with finite-sample critical values, over the period beginning in January 2000 and ending in September 2006. The iid random walk hypothesis is rejected in all 11 markets. In four stock markets, Egypt, Nigeria, Tunisia and South Africa, weekly returns are a martingale difference sequence. Liquidity is an important factor which contributes to whether a stock market follows a random walk.     

China,Hong Kong,and Taiwan: A quantitative assessment of real and financial integration

The status of real and financial integration of China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan is investigated using monthly data on 1-month interbank rates, exchange rates, and prices. Specifically, the degree of integration is assessed based on the empirical validity of real interest parity, uncovered interest parity, and relative purchasing power parity. There is evidence stating that these parity conditions tend to hold over longer periods, although they do not hold instantaneously. Overall, the magnitude of deviations from the parity conditions is shrinking over time. In particular, China and Hong Kong appear to have experienced significant increases in integration during the sample period. It is also found that exchange rate variability plays a major role in determining the variability of deviations from these parity conditions.     

ON THE RAND: DETERMINANTS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN EXCHANGE RATE

This paper is an econometric investigation of the determinants of the real value of the South African rand over the period 1984‐2007. The results show a relatively good fit. As always with exchange rate equations, there is substantial weight on the lagged exchange rate, which can be attributed to a momentum component. Nevertheless, economic fundamentals are significant and important. This is especially true of an index of the real prices of South African mineral commodities, which even drives out real income as a significant determinant. An implication is that the 2003‐2006 real appreciation of the rand can be attributed to the Dutch Disease. In other respects, the rand behaves like currencies of industrialised countries with well‐developed financial markets. In particular, high South African interest rates raise international demand for the rand and lead to real appreciation, controlling also for a forward‐looking measure of expected inflation and a measure of default risk or country risk.     

The implications for suppliers of the spread of supermarkets in southern Africa

ABSTRACT

The growth of supermarkets in southern Africa opens local and regional markets to suppliers through participation in supermarket supply chains. Supermarkets in the region provide an important route to market for processed foods and household consumable products. Through a regional value chain lens, this article provides an assessment of the implications of the growth of supermarkets for the participation of suppliers in Botswana, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The research finds that, while supermarkets provide important opportunities for suppliers, they also exert considerable buyer power that limits supplier development and upgrading. High private standards, onerous requirements and costly trading terms negatively affect supplier participation in value chains. Long-term investments are required to build the capabilities of suppliers to meet supermarket requirements in terms of quality, consistency, volume and cost-competitiveness.     

金融危机中拉美新兴市场国家货币错配变动分析

文章通过分析阿根延、巴西和墨西哥三个新兴市场国家1990--2010年间的货币错配指数与经济增长率之间的关系,利用非抛补利率平价理论分析得出:货币错配是引起金融危机的重要因素;货币错配的急剧增加,对拉美新兴市场国家经济增长有负面影响,大规模的货币错配会使拉美新兴市场国家的货币政策失效.     

Monetary policy and inflation in South Africa: A VECM augmented with foreign variables

We develop a structural cointegrated vector autoregressive (VAR) model with weakly exogenous foreign variables, known as an augmented VECM or VECX*, suitable for a small open economy like South Africa. This model is novel for South Africa in two ways: it is the first VECX* developed to analyse monetary policy and the first model that uses time‐varying trade weights to create the foreign series. We impose three significant long‐run relations (augmented purchasing power parity, uncovered interest parity and Fisher parity) to investigate the effect of a monetary policy shock on inflation. The results suggest the effective transmission of monetary policy.     

PRICE FLEXIBILITY IN THE COMMON MONETARY AREA

This paper examines the presence of flexibility within the common monetary area (CMA) as compared to a selected group of Southern African Development Co-operation (SADC) countries. The study tests for the readiness of SADC countries towards macroeconomic convergence and monetary unification. The methods followed examine the concept of (relative) purchasing power parity and test for the speed of adjustment of prices after a shock. The results suggest that the level of price flexibility is high within the CMA as opposed to the control group. The implication is that the CMA arrangement has managed to foster price flexibility among its member countries. Furthermore, Botswana could be a potential candidate for a monetary union with the CMA group.     

On the relationship between Dutch and German interest rates

Summary In this paper the relationship between Dutch and German short-term and long-term interest rates is examined. Using cointegration techniques, it is found that the covered interest parity hypothesis holds for short-term interest rates. This evidence supports the recent shift of emphasis of Dutch monetary policy. It appears that the uncovered short-term interest differential is stationary. The long-term interest differential is stationary with a shift in mean. This does not imply that the uncovered interest parity (UIP) holds. Using the indirect approach suggested by Fama (1984), we show that a risk premium exists and that, therefore, UIP does not hold.The authors would like to thank H. Garretsen, L.H. Hoogduin, J. Jacobs, C.A. de Kam and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments on a previous version of this paper.Economic Bureau NMB-Postbank.     

FINANCIAL AND MONETARY AUTONOMY AND INTERDEPENDENCE BETWEEN SOUTH AFRICA AND THE OTHER SACU COUNTRIES

The paper uses cointegration and error correction modelling techniques together with tests of weak exogeneity, and monthly interest rates for the period 1990 to 2005, to examine the degree of financial and monetary autonomy and interdependence between South Africa and the other Southern African Customs, Union (SACU) countries. The results reveal a high level of dependence of the other SACU countries' financial systems on South Africa's financial system, which suggests that a monetary unification with a single central bank (South African Reserve Bank) and monetary policy for the union is feasible.