Recent working papers

A good number of new working papers have recently been added to the Stellenbosch Working Paper Series. Here are some of the latest ones:

In "When did globalization begin in South Africa?", Willem H. Boshoff and Johan Fourie identify the period when South African prices began to move in unison with those of the country’s lead trading partner or, in other words, when South Africa globalized. They find an important role for the discovery of diamonds and gold and thereby establish the start of South Africa’s globalization in the 1870s.

Johannes Kemp and Ben Smit estimate SA’s potential output growth both before and after the global financial crisis using a multi-variate filter technique, finding that potential growth has declined to around 2.2% and that the biggest driver has been lower productivity growth, in "Estimating and explaining changes in potential growth in South Africa".

Finally, in "The long walk: Considering the enduring spatial and racial dimensions of deprivation two decades after the fall of apartheid", Ronelle Burger, Servaas van der Berg, Sarel van der Walt and Derek Yu apply the Total Fuzzy and Relative approach of Cheli and Lemmi to derive a poverty index with nine dimensions of deprivation, including education, employment, dwelling type, overcrowding, access to electricity, water, telephone, sanitation and refuse collection. They show that there has been a significant improvement in deprivation levels, but also that geography and race continue to play an important role in explaining patterns of deprivation.