Does Human Capital Protect Workers against Exogenous Shocks? Evidence from Panel Data on South Africa during the 2008‐2009 Crisis

The financial and economic crisis of 2008 and 2009 took a heavy toll on the South African economy. The economy contracted for the first time since 1998 and entered recession during the fourth quarter of 2008. The gross domestic product contraction was soon transmitted to the labour market. Between the second quarters of 2008 and 2009, employment fell by 3.8%. However, not all individuals were hit with the same intensity. Using panel data from a quarterly labour force survey unique in the African context, we find that human capital (i.e. education as years of schooling and workforce experience) provided a buffer against the shock. After controlling for observable characteristics, education and experience showed the potential to entirely offset the effect of the recession on the likelihood of employment. This has important policy implications, as it strengthens the case for strategic investments in human capital and helps identify the unskilled as having the greatest need for social safety net interventions during a recession.     

Examining dynamic currency linkages amongst South Asian economies: An empirical study

In this paper, we examine the currency market linkages of South Asian member countries using daily data from 6 January 2004 to 31st March 2016. Time invariant and varying Copula GARCH models show that South Asian countries, except for India and Nepal/Bhutan, have low levels of currency market linkages which can be ascribed to poor levels of intra-regional trade intensity and portfolio flows. We reconfirm the copula results through Diebold and Yilmaz methodology and document that currency market connectedness is very limited in the South Asian region. The trends of the fundamental determinants of currency co-movements for the South Asian member countries were compared with its neighbouring regional economic bloc in Asia which has a much longer history and a wider membership base i.e ASEAN + 6. From a comparative analysis, it was found that South Asia member states have to work on their governance parameters, improve on their trade linkages and trade tariffs and work towards greater degree of capital account convertibility with adequate safeguards to achieve higher levels of currency market linkages.     

Internal Migration of Blacks in South Africa: An Application of the Roy Model

This study investigates the internal migration of black males in South Africa over the period after the formal end of Apartheid using the 1996 census data. The two issues of our primary interests are the following: (i) whether migration patterns of black individuals are consistent with the income‐maximising hypothesis as related to the destination choice; and (ii) whether the redistribution of human capital is detected in internal migration. The results from conditional logit regressions on choices among individuals in 318 districts show that individuals prefer districts with higher expected wages, conditional on other regional characteristics. In addition, there exist differing preferences on the share of population with post‐secondary education by individuals with commensurate educational attainments. Black individuals with post‐secondary education tend to migrate into areas with a higher share of population with post‐secondary education and vice versa, which confirms the divergence of human capital levels across districts.     

Analyzing the welfare‐improving potential of land in the former homelands of South Africa

This article contributes to the debate on the role of land in reducing poverty in rural South Africa. It uses the year of arrival in the former homelands as an instrument for land access and size. This identification strategy is based on the fact that African households were forcibly relocated to the homelands during the apartheid. Due to increasing population pressure, later arrivals were less likely to be assigned land. The results show that land has a large positive effect on household welfare. Because the homelands are relatively disadvantaged areas, these results provide a lower bound for the positive effects of land on household welfare.     

The effects of regional trade integration and renewable energy transition on environmental quality: Evidence from South Asian neighbors

Improving environmental quality across South Asia has become one of the utmost important policy agendas of the concerned governments. The susceptibility of the majority of the South Asian countries to multifaceted climate change adversities has motivated the need to identify the factors that can function to ensure environmental sustainability across South Asia. Although several studies have highlighted the importance of globalization and cleaner energy use in tackling the environmental degradaton issues of the South Asian countries, very little is known regarding the impacts of regional trade and renewable energy transition in this regard. Hence, this paper aims to scrutinize the effects of enhancing intra-regional trade integration and undergoing renewable energy transition on per capita carbon dioxide emissions in the context of six South Asian nations between 1990 and 2016. The results from the recently developed cross-sectionally augmented autoregressive distributed lag regression approach, accounting for cross-sectional dependency and slope heterogeneity issues, reveal that facilitating trade among the South Asian neighbors reduces carbon emissions in both the short and long run. Moreover, enhancing the share of renewable energy in the aggregate energy consumption figures is also found to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in both the short and long run. Furthermore, both regional trade integration and renewable energy transition are found to jointly reduce carbon dioxide emissions in South Asia. The results also authenticate the existence of the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis, while financial development and urbanization are found to boost carbon dioxide emissions only in the long run.     

When the going gets tough: the influence of expatriate resilience and perceived organizational inclusion climate on work adjustment and turnover intentions

Abstract

Despite the strong evidence for the beneficial influence of resilience for employee stress resistance in domestic settings, the construct has not received much attention in the expatriation literature, where stress is considered a major factor for expatriates’ poor cross-cultural adjustment and turnover. Drawing upon conservation of resources theory, the present study examines resilience as an antecedent of expatriate work adjustment and turnover intentions. Furthermore, this study investigates the moderating role of perceived organizational inclusion climate as a resource-protecting organizational factor. Results from a survey of 175 expatriates in South Korea indicate that resilience is positively related to expatriate work adjustment and that these positive effects are more pronounced when expatriates perceive their organizational climate to be highly inclusive. Furthermore, findings suggest that work adjustment mediates the effects of resilience on turnover intentions and that this mediation is moderated by a perceived organizational inclusion climate. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

Measurements and determinants of multifaceted poverty in South Africa

Poverty, despite being a multifaceted concept, is commonly measured in either absolute or relative monetary terms. However, it can also be measured subjectively, as people form perceptions on their relative income, welfare and life satisfaction. This is the first study that uses the National Income Dynamics Study data to analyse poverty across various objective and subjective methods. The paper finds that while respondents' poverty status varies across methods, blacks remain the racial group most likely to be defined as poor by at least one method. The multivariate analysis reveals that the impact of some explanatory variables, such as experience of negative events, frequency of crime victimisation, health status and importance of religious activities, is mixed across methods.     

Social assistance and dignity: South African women's experiences of the child support grant

Many women interact with the South African social security system in relation to the Child Support Grant (CSG), which is social assistance payable for children living with low-income caregivers. This paper explores women's accounts of how the CSG serves to protect and respect dignity, a foundational value in the South African Constitution. Drawing from focus groups and in-depth interviews with female CSG recipients of working age, it is argued that whilst the experience of using the CSG does protect dignity in certain important respects, other aspects including the application process, the small amount of the grant and negative discourses associated with the status of being a CSG recipient were experienced by many as erosive of dignity.     

How to improve a technology evaluation model: A data-driven approach

Academic research suggests a number of technology evaluation models. To ensure effective use, models need to be improved in accordance with changing internal and external environments. However, a majority of previous studies focus on model development, while a few emphasize their implementation or improvement. To fill this research gap, this study suggests a systematic approach to examining the validity of technology evaluation models and improving them. We consider three propositions as criteria for improvement: 1) the coherence of the evaluation results with the evaluation purpose, 2) the appropriateness of the evaluation methods, and 3) the concreteness of the evaluation model. Rather than using expert opinions, this study takes a data-driven approach, wherein we analyze actual evaluation results and determine whether the model produces the intended results. A case study of 291 technology evaluation results, all made by the South Korean government in support of technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises, is conducted to verify the suggested approach's applicability. This is one of the few studies to address issues regarding improvements to a technology evaluation model. Its approach can help to develop and continuously improve a valid technology evaluation model, thus leading to more effective practice.