Achieving Price Financial And Macro Economic Stability In South Africa

This book explores the macro-financial effects of central bank balance sheets, macro-prudential tools, and financial regulation in South Africa. How employment can be maximised while keeping inflation low and stable is examined in relation to the structural changes required to alter the composition of South African bank balance sheets. Quantitative methods and approaches are utilised to highlight the impact of suggested policies. This book aims to outline strategies and policy interventions that can help achieve the National Development Plan in South Africa. It will be of interest to researchers and policymakers working within development economics, African economics, development finance, and financial policy.

This book examines the dynamics in capital flows, credit markets and growth in South Africa. The authors explore the role of global economic growth, policy shifts and various economic policy uncertainties. Central banks in advanced economies are engaged in unconventional monetary policy tools such as balance sheet policies, negative interest rates and extended forward guidance to assist them to meet their price, financial and macro-economic stability objectives. This book determines whether BRICS GDP growth is a source of shocks or an amplifier of global growth shocks. The authors find that global economic growth and policy uncertainty reinforce each other via capital flows, credit conditions and business confidence on the domestic economy. Furthermore, they demonstrate that there is momentum in the changes in the spread between the repo rate and federal funds rate. In addition, global real policy rates impact domestic GDP growth and labor market conditions. The authors examine the economic costs of capital flow surges, sudden stops and elevated portfolio volatility shocks and their interaction with GDP growth and credit. They show that equity and debt inflows matter in the attainment of the price stability mandate. Moreover, business confidence transmits sovereign credit ratings upgrades and downgrades shocks to the real economy via GDP growth, the cost of government debt and borrowing to impact credit growth. High GDP growth increases the likelihood of sovereign credit ratings upgrades, hence policymakers should implement pro-growth policies. Inflation regimes impact the transmission of positive nominal demand shocks to the price level. Low and stable inflation (inflation below 4.5 per cent) reduces the pass-through of positive nominal demand shocks to inflation.

This book explores the disconnect between fiscal policy and macroeconomic development in South Africa. It analyses the factors that have contributed to the lack of economic growth in the country over recent decades and outlines an improved fiscal policy framework that increases investment and employment. Particular attention is given to the impact of government debt and its relationship with GDP, the connection between budget deficits and interest rates, and how economic policy uncertainty affects employment dynamics and inflation. This book provides practical fiscal policy suggestions to increase economic growth in South Africa and Africa more generally. It will be relevant to researchers and policymakers interested in African economics and economic policy.

This book presents empirical evidence that supports and facilitates a practical, integrated approach to how bank regulatory and selected macro-prudential tools interact with monetary policy to achieve price and financial stability. The empirical results contained in various chapters accompany in-depth historical analysis and counterfactual scenarios that enable proper policy evaluation and the interaction of bank regulatory, macro-prudential and monetary policy tools in South Africa. The presented evidence also identifies financial asset boom and bust episodes and the associated costly output losses. In addition, the authors explore the amplification of credit dynamics by commodity prices and sector credit re-allocation due to capital inflows shocks. The book’s empirical analysis uses a wide range of statistical and econometric approaches on granular data and economic variables to derive policy implications and recommendations. This in-depth quantitative analysis includes determining inverse transmission of global liquidity, as well as the effects of capital flows, lending-rate margins, financial regulatory uncertainty, the National Credit Act, bank capital-adequacy ratios, bank loan loss provisions, loan-to-value ratios and repayment-to-income ratios on the macro-economy.

This book offers new quantitative insights into how South African economy reacts to external economic shocks. The analysis includes focusing on economic growth and financial spill over, effects of capital inflows, contrasting the stock market price returns and volatility on economic growth and determining the effects of financial stress.

This book explores the disconnect between fiscal policy and macroeconomic development in South Africa. It analyses the factors that have contributed to the lack of economic growth in the country over recent decades and outlines an improved fiscal policy framework that increases investment and employment. Particular attention is given to the impact of government debt and its relationship with GDP, the connection between budget deficits and interest rates, and how economic policy uncertainty affects employment dynamics and inflation. This book provides practical fiscal policy suggestions to increase economic growth in South Africa and Africa more generally. It will be relevant to researchers and policymakers interested in African economics and economic policy.

This book examines the COVID-19 pandemic through socioeconomic lens that draw on history, approaches to state-market relations, and public policy perspectives In 2020, the world experienced the worst pandemic since the outbreak of the Spanish Flu of 1918, which continues to have far[1]reaching implications for the global economy and triggered macro-economic dislocations that severely affected the most vulnerable countries and segments of society. This book was conceived as a response to the disruptive shifts induced by the pandemic, with a particular focus on South Africa. International experience has shown that countries and societies that have gone through tough economic times, either as a consequence of wars or economic depressions, have responded to crises by enacting unpopular policy measures based on difficult tradeoffs, which often made way for innovation. The authors outline policy responses to the COVID-19 crisis and propose several interventions to mitigate its effects. These include developing innovative approaches to fiscal and monetary policies, labour market policies, industrial policies, as well as social policies. Building state capabilities, improving the governance and performance of state institutions, and managing digital change are some of the clear policy interventions that are laid out in this book.