THE ROLE OF COMMODITY PRICES IN MACROECONOMIC POLICY IN SOUTH AFRICA

This paper examines whether commodity prices can be used as signal for informing macroeconomic policy in South Africa using the new approach for testing Granger causality developed by Toda and Yamamoto (1995 ). Evidence of causality from average gold price to interest rate, money, exchange rate and the consumer price index was observed. Again, evidence of causality was observed from metals price index to interest rate, money and exchange rate. The results suggest there is merit in using South Africa's average gold price and the metals price index of the International Monetary Fund as informational variables in setting monetary policy.     

SHORT‐RUN AND LONG‐RUN DETERMINANTS OF THE REAL EXCHANGE RATE IN MEXICO

This paper explores the real exchange rate behavior in Mexico from 1960 until 2005. Since the empirical analysis reveals that the real exchange rate is not mean reverting, we propose that economic fundamental variables affect its evolution in the long run. Therefore, based on equilibrium exchange rate paradigms, we propose a simple model of real exchange rate determination, which includes the relative GDP per capita, the real interest rates, and the net foreign assets over a long period of time. Our analysis also considers the dynamic adjustment in response to shocks through impulse response functions derived from the multivariate vector autoregressive (VAR) model.     

WELFARE EFFECTS OF RISING OIL PRICES IN OIL‐IMPORTING DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Oil prices began climbing consistently in 2002, reaching a record high in July 2008. Though this trend slipped back thereafter, owing to the global economic crisis, oil prices seem to be gradually regaining upward movement. Through an analysis of counterfactual simulations based on a dynamic computable general equilibrium model, this paper shows that the negative impact on GDP of the most recent oil price boom has been substantial in six oil‐importing developing countries, as high as 2% to 3% of GDP per year in some cases, producing unemployment and higher consumer prices and, as a consequence, reduced welfare. Importantly, welfare losses have been much less for countries that have witnessed gains from higher export‐commodity prices. Even for these countries, however, policy action is called for to soften the impact of potential future oil price booms.     

THE LONG‐TERM ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF AGRICULTURAL MARKETING LEGISLATION IN SOUTH AFRICA

The marketing of most agricultural products in South Africa was subject to intervention by statutory bodies over a period of some 60 years. At the time of the promulgation of the first legislation there was a vigorous debate on the predicted economic effects; in 1983 one of the architects of these instruments published a justification in these pages, followed in 2000 by a “post‐mortem,” which confirmed most of the negative predictions that had been made. The purpose in this article is to revisit this debate and to provide a first assessment of the long‐term impacts of the legislation.     

EXCHANGE RATE PASS‐THROUGH TO IMPORT PRICES IN SOUTH AFRICA: IS THERE ASYMMETRY?1

This paper examines the magnitude and speed of exchange rate pass‐through (ERPT) to import prices in South Africa. It further explores whether the direction and size of changes in the exchange rate have different pass‐through effects on import prices, i.e. whether the exchange rate pass‐through is symmetric or asymmetric. The findings of the study suggest that ERPT in South Africa is incomplete but relatively high. Furthermore, ERPT is found to be higher in periods of rand depreciation than appreciation, which supports the binding quantity constraint theory. There is also evidence to suggest that pass‐through is slightly higher in periods of small changes than large changes in the exchange rate in harmony with the menu cost theory when the invoices are denominated in the exporters' currency.     

THE VARIOUS DIMENSIONS OF COMMODITY DEPENDENCE IN AFRICA

This paper considers whether or not the poor performance of many African countries can be ascribed to a dependency on primary commodity exports. This is a multidimensional question which concerns the Prebisch‐Singer Hypothesis, commodity price volatility, the dependence of GDP on exports and the commodity price elasticity of exchange rates (the so‐called Dutch disease problem). To consider these questions, the paper uses data on 39 commodities and ten African countries. It finds that relative to the price of manufactured goods there is a downward secular trend in less than half of the commodity prices considered. Nonetheless, most commodity prices are highly volatile. Furthermore, in the case of half of the countries considered GDP is dependent on exports. However, the paper finds limited evidence for Dutch disease.     

FACTORS THAT AFFECT THE LONG‐TERM SURVIVAL OF MICRO,SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES IN ETHIOPIA

There is an increasing recognition of the potential importance of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) for employment, income and poverty reduction in Ethiopia. Although the MSME sector contributes significantly to the national economy, the high failure rate among well established small businesses and enterprises is a matter of major concern. A random sample of 500 small businesses and enterprises selected from five major cities in Ethiopia were followed up for 6 years in order to assess the impact of influential factors that affect the long‐term survival and viability of small enterprises. Hazard ratios estimated from the Cox Proportional Hazards Model were used to quantify the impact of key predictors of survival. Businesses that ceased operation were characterised by inadequate finance (61%), low level of education (55%), poor managerial skills (54%), shortage of technical skills (49%), and inability to convert part of their profit to investment (46%). The study shows that participation in social capital and networking (iqqub schemes) was critically helpful for long‐term survival. Businesses that did not participate in iqqub schemes regularly were found to be 3.25 times more likely to fail in comparison with businesses that did. Results of the study have implications that could be used for developing policy initiatives that are aimed at fostering long‐term growth in small businesses and enterprises.     

FACTOR PRICES AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION IN LESS INDUSTRIALISED ECONOMIES 1870–1939

Global trade expansion after 1870 had potentially powerful effects on income distribution, especially in land-abundant less industrialised economies, by increasing land prices relative to wages. The papers in this issue add evidence on wage–rentals for a range of countries, specifically Australia, Canada, Ghana, India, and Sweden. These new data offer partial support for Jeffrey Williamson's view that the distributional effects of booming global trade to 1914 were powerful and ubiquitous, but they highlight that more attention might be given to geographical boundaries and to other distribution forces including technology and wage bargaining conditions.     

NO‐ARBITRAGE ONE‐FACTOR MODELS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN TERM STRUCTURE OF INTEREST RATES

Short‐term interest rate processes determine the term structure of interest rates in an arbitrage‐free market and are central to the valuation of interest rate derivatives. We obtain parameter estimates and compare the empirical fit of alternative one‐factor continuous‐time processes for the South African short‐term interest rate (and hence of arbitrage‐free term structure models) using Gaussian estimation methods. We find support only for diffusions where the interest rate volatility is moderately sensitive to the level of the interest rate. Other common models with restrictions that either preclude this effect, or restrict it to be too high, do not fit the data. Differences in the specification of the drift function have no evident effect on model performance.     

GLOBALISATION, FACTOR PRICES, AND POVERTY IN COLONIAL INDIA

Analytical accounts of South Asian economic history often suggest that the principal effects of nineteenth century globalisation on the region were deindustrialisation and agrarian expansion, and that deindustrialisation contributed to an increase in poverty despite agricultural growth. Available wage datasets show that artisans did relatively well and rural workers relatively worse in the period in question, suggesting that poverty did increase but deindustrialisation was an unlikely cause. I discuss the wage statistics to show this, and propose that, in order to complete the globalisation story, we need to consider three local factors: limits to deindustrialisation, limits to labour mobility, and limits to agrarian expansion.     

THE INTERTEMPORAL RELATION BETWEEN MONEY AND PRICES IN SOUTH AFRICA*

Several studies have emphasized the need to ‘filter’ the money growth and inflation data before a clear short‐run intertemporal relation between them is revealed. When a simple filtering technique is employed to changes in money and prices, the correlation of the series tends to increase as the filter used shifts to lower frequency data. The technique also reveals a statistically significant relation between money and inflation, a pattern of Granger causality that has changed with changes in the monetary and exchange rate regime during 1965‐2005, and much shorter leads/lags between money and inflation than those typically found in similar studies of the experience of developed economies.     

METROPOLITAN HOUSE PRICES IN SOUTH AFRICA: DO THEY CONVERGE?

The question this paper investigates is whether or not different metropolitan areas each constitute a separate housing market or whether or not there is a single South African housing market. Theory on the Law of One Price suggests that if products or geographic areas belong in the same market, their absolute prices must converge, so that their relative prices are stationary. By using cross-sectional time series data of five metropolitan areas, the paper tests for the Law of One Price by applying the Im, Pesaran and Shin panel unit root test. The paper finds strong evidence of convergence in large middle-segment house prices and weaker support for convergence in medium middle-segment house prices. In addition, the paper finds no evidence for convergence in small middle-segment house prices. This suggests the existence of a national market for large and possibly middle-segment houses in metropolitan areas, but separate metropolitan markets for small middle-segment houses. In addition, the paper estimates the speed of convergence and finds that large middle-segment house prices converge within two to seven quarters, while the speed of convergence for medium middle-segment house prices in three of the five areas is five to eight quarters.