The Evolving Structure Of South Africa S Economy

South Africa still faces low economic growth and high unemployment, coupled with the persistent challenges of poverty and inequality. These exert pressure on South Africa to foster structural transformation that will facilitate a more inclusive and resilient economy. Authors apply multiple theoretical and empirical perspectives to take stock of the historical and contemporary structure of the South African economy, its evolving nature and possible future pathways. The explore how South Africa's structural transformation agenda is affected by the global context, and discuss debates on the extreme social impacts of globalised and financialised economic structures. Contributors offer technical and analytical discussions of the overlapping structural faultlines that produce uneven economic performance. They explain the changes and continuities of South Africa's economic structure, bound by an analytical thread that centres power relations and political settlements. Varied chapters explain how poor governance and corruption have slowed down structural reform. This has been further exacerbated by the inconsistent availability of energy and the deterioration of logistics. The book details the structural reforms and policy regimes necessary for increasing productive capacity in South Africa's agriculture, manufacturing, agro-processing. retail and services, energy and mining industries. It also reflects on the role that micro- and informal enterprises can play if afforded the necessary support. The technical details and analyses in the book highlight the need for a radical review of macroeconomic policy to reduce the country's chronic vulnerability to poverty and inequality.

South Africa still faces low economic growth and high unemployment, coupled with the persistent challenges of poverty and inequality. These exert pressure on South Africa to foster structural transformation that will facilitate a more inclusive and resilient economy. Authors apply multiple theoretical and empirical perspectives to take stock of the historical and contemporary structure of the South African economy, its evolving nature and possible future pathways. The explore how South Africa's structural transformation agenda is affected by the global context, and discuss debates on the extreme social impacts of globalised and financialised economic structures. Contributors offer technical and analytical discussions of the overlapping structural faultlines that produce uneven economic performance. They explain the changes and continuities of South Africa's economic structure, bound by an analytical thread that centres power relations and political settlements. Varied chapters explain how poor governance and corruption have slowed down structural reform. This has been further exacerbated by the inconsistent availability of energy and the deterioration of logistics. The book details the structural reforms and policy regimes necessary for increasing productive capacity in South Africa's agriculture, manufacturing, agro-processing. retail and services, energy and mining industries. It also reflects on the role that micro- and informal enterprises can play if afforded the necessary support. The technical details and analyses in the book highlight the need for a radical review of macroeconomic policy to reduce the country's chronic vulnerability to poverty and inequality.

In this book, Mario Scerri provides the reader with a novel and sweeping rendition of South Africa’s economic history from the early part of the twentieth century to the present. He applies a broad innovation systems approach to this history spanning the period from 1916, which saw the drafting of South Africa’s first Science and Technology plan to the first fourteen years of the post-apartheid period. The introduction of the book lays out the scope of the work and its focus on the identification of continuities and ruptures in the economic history of South Africa. The first part of the book deals with the theoretical foundations of the approach. The first chapter in this section looks at the emergence of evolutionary economics and innovation systems theory as the basis for the main countervailing argument against the neoclassical/neoliberal orthodoxy. In the course of this chapter the foundation is laid for the development of an alternative general theory of economics. The second chapter covers the main debates on the economic history of South Africa and looks at the several varieties of the liberal and Marxist renditions of this history. The theoretical section lays the foundation for the history that is covered in the four chapters which follow. These cover three broad periods since 1916. The first runs up to 1948 with the election victory of the National Party. The second covers the apartheid period and the last follows with an account of the post apartheid political economy. An endnote provides the basis for the analysis of what may possibly be the emergence of a fourth main period in the evolution of the South African system of innovation. The Evolution of the South African System of Innovation since 1916 opens up a novel engagement with the complex phenomenon of apartheid, its genealogy and its aftermath. It will appeal to economists and economic historians who are interested in the economy of South Africa. It will be of particular interest to evolutionary economists who use the systems of innovation approach as an alternative to mainstream neoclassical economics in the analysis of dynamic economic systems. For this particular audience, this book will provide a welcome addition to the growing body of literature in this area, especially given the novelty of its historical approach.

Taking South Africa as an important case study of the challenges of structural transformation, the book offers a new micro-meso level framework and evidence linking country-specific and global dynamics of change, with a focus on the current challenges and opportunities faced by middle-income countries.

The book, made up of three parts, covers a wide spectrum of political economy issues on post-apartheid South Africa. Although the text is mainly descriptive, to explain various areas of the political economy of post-apartheid South Africa, the first and the last parts provide illuminating insights on the kind of society that is emerging during the twenty-one years of democracy in the country. The book discusses important aspects of the political history of apartheid South Africa and the evolution of post-apartheid society, including an important recap of the history of southern Africa before colonialism. The text is a comprehensive description of numerous political economy phenomena since South Africa gained its political independence and covers some important themes that have not been discussed in detail in other publications on post-apartheid South Africa. The book also updates earlier work of the author on policy and law making, land and agriculture, education and training as well as on poverty and inequality in post-apartheid South Africa thereby providing a wide-ranging overview of the socio-economic development approaches followed by the successive post-apartheid administrations. Interestingly, three chapters focus on various aspects of the post-apartheid South African economy: economic policies, economic empowerment and industrial development. Through the lens of the notion of democratic developmental state and taking apartheid colonialism as a point of departure, the book suggests that, so far, post-apartheid South Africa has mixed socio-economic progress. The authors extensive experience in the South African government ensures that the book has policy relevance while it is also theoretically sound. The text is useful for anyone who wants to understand the totality of the policies and legislation as well as the political economy interventions pursued since 1994 by the South African Government.

In recent years, some counties in Africa south of the Sahara (SSA) have experienced growth in their economies and improvements in living standards. Although there is some debate, it is clear that the share of the population living below the poverty line fell significantly over the past decade and a half; there has been a general decline in infant mortality rates and increased access to education; in some of the fastest-growing economies, average growth rates have been positive for the first time in decades; and since the early 1990s, real consumption in SSA has grown between 3.4 and 3.7 percent per year. The reasons behind this so-called “African growth miracle” are not well understood, and to our knowledge, this paper is the first to connect these improvements in living standards to important occupational changes. Using data from the Groningen Growth and Development Center’s Africa Sector Database and the Demographic and Health Surveys, we show that much of SSA’s recent growth and poverty reduction has been associated with a substantive decline in the share of the labor force engaged in agriculture. This decline is most pronounced for rural females over the age of 25 who have a primary education. This has been accompanied by a systematic increase in the productivity of the labor force, as it has moved from low productivity agriculture to higher productivity services and manufacturing. We also show that although the employment share in manufacturing is not expanding rapidly, in most of the low-income SSA countries, the employment share in manufacturing has not peaked and is still expanding, albeit from very low levels. Although these patterns are encouraging, more work is needed to understand the implications of these shifts in employment shares for future growth and development in SSA.

Focuses on the place of Southern Africa in the globalized economy. Identifies the overall economic trends in the African continent and the responses, required and actual, to the impact of an increasingly interdependent world economy.

First published in 1999, the essays collected in the present volume derive from an interest in South Africa and its economy which goes back to the early 1970s and were written between 1994 and 1999. The intention is to follow how the debate on the South African economy has evolved since the fall of the apartheid regime. Issues discussed include the South African economy after apartheid and whether the new South African economy is ultimately experienced growth or stagnation.