Higher education,employment and economic growth: Exploring the interactions

ABSTRACT

This article interrogates the impact and nature of South Africa’s post-apartheid economic growth performance through the lens of human capital investment with a particular emphasis on higher education. The South African economy has been characterised by a skills-biased trajectory, ensuring jobs for the better educated. By differentiating between tertiary and vocational training, we find that further education and training (FET) graduates are almost as likely to be employed as school leavers without higher education. We analyse the extent to which the educational attainments of labour affect the nature and trajectory of economic growth in South Africa, by estimating Olley and Pakes’ two-stage regression on a modified Cobb–Douglas production function. The results indicate that the degree cohort contributes to economic growth whilst other higher education institutions, including FET colleges, do not productively contribute to economic growth.     

SOUTH AFRICA AND THE NEW PARTNERSHIP FOR AFRICA'S DEVELOPMENT: ECONOMIC SPIN-OFFS AND LINKAGES

The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is a concerted effort by Africa's political leaders to develop a comprehensive and integrated strategic policy framework to raise current levels of socio‐economic development and reduce high levels of poverty across the African continent. The NEPAD framework recognises the need for African countries to pool their resources together in order to enhance regional development and economic integration. To this end, NEPAD emphasises capacity building and also seeks to solicit and disburse funds towards infrastructural development programmes and poverty alleviation projects, among others. South Africa's involvement with the rest of Africa has increased significantly since 1994. Trade exports, foreign direct investment (both market and resource‐seeking in nature) and public‐private partnerships have mushroomed in many parts of the continent. Many South African firms are providing the financial impetus for the infrastructural development and rehabilitation of African economies. This paper discusses salient economic linkages between South Africa and the rest of Africa within the framework of NEPAD. South Africa is the economic hub of sub‐Saharan Africa (and indeed of the African continent), with significant agricultural, manufacturing and services capacity. South African firms have invested in the development of a number of sectors in the rest of Africa, taking advantage of the new investment incentives offered by the NEPAD framework. The target sectors range from mining, the hospitality industry, engineering and construction, finance to telecommunications. These investments and economic involvements are crucial to the development of African countries and the relevant sectors that are important for the realisation of some of the objectives of NEPAD.     

Cost recovery in a project context: Some World Bank experience in tropical Africa

The shortage of government recurrent funding in Africa has led to widespread deterioration of public services. One reason for this shortage is the substantial consumption of public resources in Africa by parapublic organizations which elsewhere in the world cover costs or generate surpluses. In contrast, the World Bank emphasizes the development of institutions which cover costs either through sale of output or user charges. The Bank's experience with projects in non-market sectors is also of interest, e.g. primary education in which public subsidies predominate. Another reason for the shortage is that government budgeting – both revenues and expenditures – is rarely forward-looking. Aggregate future expenditure claims are often underestimated. Hence more attention to forward budgeting is needed. In general governments need to be far more concerned with getting projects which generate their own finance if broad-based public services are to become the rule.     

Poverty and inequality in South Africa: critical reflections

ABSTRACT

South Africa is a paradox; on the one hand, it is one of the most unequal countries in the world. Half of all South Africans continue to live in poverty, economic growth has stagnated and inflation remains high, while the unemployment rate continues to climb towards 30%. On the other hand, it has one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, with a bill of rights that foregrounds expanded socioeconomic rights. We provide an overview of the latest statistics on poverty and inequality in light of overarching economic policies, and the socioeconomic guarantees of the Constitution. We argue that South Africa’s inability to meaningfully address the high levels of inequality is due to insufficient attention to the way power reproduces inequality. We present a definition of power that includes social and market power, and emphasise the importance of a theory of power in understanding the reproduction of inequality.     

The rationale for an employment guarantee in South Africa

This article considers what would happen if unemployed people in South Africa had a right to a minimum level of regular work on decent terms. It looks at the example of India, where a law was passed in 2005 guaranteeing rural households up to 100 days of work a year at minimum wage rates. More than 55 million households now participate in this programme – a rare example of a policy innovation bringing about significant change in a society. India's employment guarantee has important implications for social and economic policy and gives new meaning to the concept of ‘a right to work’. The article explores how structural inequality limits South Africa's development options, and considers early lessons from South Africa's Community Work Programme to make the case for an employment guarantee in South Africa.     

The changing geography of world trade: Projections to 2030

Rapid economic growth in Asia (and some other emerging economies) has been shifting the global economic and industrial centres of gravity away from the north Atlantic, raising the importance of Asia in world trade, and boosting South–South trade. This paper examines how trade patterns are likely to change in the course of continuing economic growth and structural changes in Asia and the rest of the world over the next two decades. It does so by projecting a core baseline for the world economy from 2004 to 2030 and comparing it with alternative scenarios, including slower economic growth rates in the ‘North’, slower productivity growth in primary sectors, and prospective trade policy reforms in Developing Asia, without and with policy reforms also in the ‘North’ and in South–South trade. Projected impacts on international trade patterns, sectoral shares of GDP, ‘openness’ to trade, and potential welfare gains from reforms are highlighted, in addition to effects on bilateral trade patterns as summarized by intra- and extra-regional trade intensity and propensity indexes. The paper concludes with implications for regional and multilateral trade policy.     

South Africa’s Economic Transformation Since 1994: What Influence has the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) Had?

When the African National Congress (ANC) became the democratic government of South Africa in 1994, it faced the challenge of transforming the economy. How this was to be done, however, revolved around two divergent views of the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) which forms the underlying ideology or glue that binds together the Tripartite Alliance comprising the ANC, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the largest workers’ union in the country. Transformation could be achieved either radically through measures such as nationalisation where political control would be transposed into economic power, or via a more liberal route involving the promotion of macro-economic development and the growth of company earnings. This article investigates how the ANC government has sought to bring about the much-needed transformation by providing summary analyses of the following macro-economic policies: the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) strategy, the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative - South Africa (ASGISA), the New Growth Path (NGP) and the National Development Plan (NDP). Evidence suggests that while the NDR promised radical results, the economic transformation that has been taking place in South Africa since 1994 has been driven largely by neo-liberal principles. This is in contrast to what the ANC claims in various policy documents and what various scholars, such as Jeffery (2010:5) and Venter (2012), have also claimed. As South Africa’s economic fortunes have declined in recent years in the face of mounting external pressures and internal policy uncertainty, this deviation from the original ideology and plan is causing significant discord in the country.     

产业结构服务化与经济增长的关系——一个文献综述

经济增长过程中伴随着产业结构的变迁,主导产业从第一产业向第二产业、第三产业转移。工业化后期产业结构向第三产业转移的"服务化"特征受到了越来越多的关注。本文梳理了关于服务业发展,产业结构服务化与经济增长关系的理论和实证研究,重点探讨了产业结构服务化的含义、原因及对经济增长的影响,试图对我国产业结构调整提供一定的借鉴意义。     

Constraints to biofuel feedstock production expansion in Zambia

ABSTRACT

World biofuel production has been increasing to improve energy security and mitigate global warming. Southern Africa’s bioenergy demand could increase with South Africa’s planned fuel blending mandates, triggering increased demand for feedstocks and agricultural land. Ensuring sustained production will require a full understanding of the constraints to production expansion, considering the tradeoffs that may be generated in rural areas, as has been observed for large-scale land acquisitions. We analyse the social and biophysical constraints to biofuel production expansion in Zambia. Previously social constraints have received limited attention even though they may prove more problematic. Results indicate that Zambia is at least moderately suitable for bioenergy investments with biophysically suitable areas largely coinciding with the socially suitable areas. However, existing gaps in compensatory procedures may inhibit large-scale projects’ access to development finance if not aligned with internationally acceptable practices, and generate negative outcomes if safeguards are not in place.     

Equity,Bonds, Institutional Debt and Economic Growth: Evidence from South Africa

We examine the finance‐growth nexus in South Africa accounting for the role of bond markets, stock markets, and bank and non‐bank financial intermediaries using a vector autoregressive technique. Extant empirical literature has largely accounted for only banks and stock markets, ignoring bond market and non‐bank financial intermediaries. We find that bond market development affects economic growth in South Africa, and no similar effect is observed for the bank and non‐bank financial intermediaries and the stock market. Our finding shows that examination of individual elements of the financial system is important in understanding the unique effect of each on growth. The observation that the bond market rather than stock market, bank and non‐bank institutions promote economic growth in South Africa induces an intriguing question as to what unique roles bond markets play that the intermediaries and equity market are unable to play.     

Analysing legal mobilisation’s potential to secure equal access to socioeconomic justice in South Africa

ABSTRACT

From the moment South Africa became a liberal democracy, the Government promised to deliver on social security for the poor. However, South African NGOs have reported that several barriers prevent poor South Africans, and black women in particular, from accessing the country’s social assistance system. Government inaction has compelled NGOs to approach the Courts. As reflected in a series of court judgements, many problems faced by the system relate to the administration of payments by South African and multinational corporations. But is this the complete story?

Applying a critical, analytical lens of legal mobilisation to explain the potential of legal mobilisation to secure progressive structural change, this article will assess the extent to which civic-based, legal advocacy aimed at securing access to social grants, and challenging the manner in which these grants have been administered, has the potential to more strategically advance socioeconomic justice and inequality for South Africa’s poor.     

Serbia on the path to modern economic growth

Given the scanty and inadequate studies on Serbia's growth performance before the First World War, this paper presents production-side GDP estimates for Serbia for six years between 1867 and 1910. It probes into the growth dynamics, assessing convergence with the more developed countries of north-western Europe, as well as progress towards achieving modern economic growth. Although the economy showed some dynamism in terms of overall GDP, per capita GDP in pre-First World War Serbia grew by only 0.28 per cent per annum, as much of the overall GDP growth was eroded by rapid population growth. Far from converging with north-western Europe, Serbia continued to fall behind. Sluggish structural transformation and slow income per capita growth suggest that Serbia's transition to modern economic growth was in its infancy. Growth in the dominant agricultural sector was extensive, driven by expanding arable land and population growth. Land was affordable and easy to obtain; hence, peasants invested little in new technologies. Meanwhile, the modern industrial and service sectors were below a threshold that could sustain rapid growth. Nevertheless, this study also highlights the rapid expansion of a small modern sector and export diversification that reflected emergent ‘green shoots’ in 1905–10.     

Sub-Saharan Africa in depression: The impact on the welfare of children

This paper analyses the impact of the economic crisis on the welfare of children in Sub-Saharan Africa, an area which includes most of the least developed and most severely affected countries. These countries are characterized by: low levels of skilled personpower, dependency on their primary product exports, small industrial sectors, a lagging food production growth, a high proportion of rural population and a child dependency ratio that is virtually 1 to 1. The situations of Nigeria, Zambia and Tanzania are examined in detail. In Zambia where there is substantial evidence of worsening of the condition of children in the 1970s, the most urgent requirement is additional resources, particularly foreign exchange. Such is also the case with Tanzania, while Nigeria does have the resources to develop a more coherent economy and finance basic services adequately.     

Inequality caused by macro-economic policies during overaccumulation crisis

ABSTRACT

The tendency of capital to ‘overaccumulate’ has on occasion been severe in post-apartheid South Africa, but has taken different forms. The neoliberal era since the early 1990s has witnessed overaccumulation-crisis displacement in a manner that exacerbates inequality. Such displacement includes financialisation (i.e. higher relative debt and share-portfolio ratios, as well as illicit financial flows), worsening uneven spatial development (within cities and between rural and urban livelihoods), and an amplification of environmentally-damaging extraction systems. Public policy accommodated, accentuated and displaced the crisis, rather than ameliorated, reversed or resolved these symptoms of overaccumulation, to the detriment of the poorest South Africans. Although government has made efforts to address social distress through fiscal policy (e.g. social grants and education), most macro-economic policies – especially in the monetary, financial and international spheres – are amplifiers of inequality. But the most important constraint is a deeper problem than public policy typically admits: capital's tendency to overaccumulation.     

基于SSM的山西省产业结构分析

合理的产业结构是区域经济增长的关键。山西省是典型的资源型省份,2010年被国务院设为综改区之后,产业结构调整与优化成为山西省转型发展的关键点。基于偏离-份额（SSM）方法,对2008年-2012年间山西产业结构中的19个产业部门发展状况进行剖析,将产业部门按优势进行分类。结果得到：山西省实现转型发展要逐步减少采矿业的份额;对于具有结构优势或者竞争优势的产业部门要给予政策支持;而对于没有任何优势的部门要采取稳定发展政策。     

中国产业结构变化对经济增长的影响分析

在现代市场经济条件下,经济增长主要取决于劳动力、资金、技术等各种资源的有效配置。这些要素在部门之间的流动所产生的效益很大程度上取决于产业之间的技术转换水平和结构状态。因此产业结构演变与经济增长具有内在的联系。本文旨在研究近年来我国产业结构的变化及这一变化对我国经济增长的影响,并对改善产业结构提出政策建议。     

Resistance to coal inequalities and the possibilities of a just transition in South Africa*

ABSTRACT

Coal mining and burning are among the most destructive activities on the planet, and a major driver of environmental inequality in South Africa. This article suggests that, despite heavy constraints, initiatives involving resistance to coal are building a ‘counter-power’ which challenges inequality, generates solidarity, and is potentially infused by imaginative visions of another world beyond coal. Following the ‘social power’ approach this vision could, with deeper connections between three sites of resistance to coal – organised labour, mining affected communities and environmental justice organisations – cohere into a vision of a ‘just transition’. This could embed the anti-coal struggle in a social movement for an alternative development path to challenge deepening poverty and inequality.     

Policy and trade issues for a future regional biofuels market in Southern Africa

ABSTRACT

This paper reviews the domestic political and legislative context surround biofuels initiatives to highlight what opportunities exist for establishing a biofuels trade network between South Africa (as an anchor market) and its neighbours, specifically in Zambia and Mozambique. By analysing global developments in major biofuel importers, reasons for policy inertia in South Africa, and recent experiences with biofuels investments, we suggest that the likelihood for a regional biofuels market developing is slender without addressing land-related challenges in producer countries and revising South Africa’s domestic legislation.     

韩国的中东经济外交:国际组织与论坛的视角

韩国作为世界新兴工业国和世界第13大经济体,国际组织和国际论坛为代表的制度设计为韩国开展与中东国家之间的经济外交提供了更为广阔的平台。韩国的中东经济外交主要通过国际组织和国际论坛两个方面体现出来,前者主要体现在:世界贸易组织(WTO)、经济合作与发展组织(OECD)、全球绿色经济成长研究所(GGGI)和中东海水淡化研究中心(MEDRC)等;后者体现在:韩国在20国集团(G20)、亚洲-中东对话(AMED)和韩国中东合作论坛(KMECF)等。"阿拉伯之春"以及阿拉伯国家的"向东看"趋势在当前国际经济背景下会愈发明显,韩国在加强与中东国家经济外交上所进行的全方位、立体化的合作机制和制度建设有着较强的借鉴意义。