Mineral Prices and the Exchange Rate: What Does the Literature Say?
This paper forms part of the Human Sciences Research Council’s project on exchange rates and employment (MACRO006), which seeks to understand the impact of exchange rate fluctuations on employment in South Africa. It reviews the literature on the relationship between commodity prices and the exchange rate, and its implications for labour-intensive export manufacturing. It focuses…
read more >>The Impact of Exchange Rate Movements on Employment: The Economy-Wide Effect of a Rand Appreciation
The volatility of the exchange rate is a particular concern for South Africa, since the country must dramatically expand sustainable employment while also raising value added in production. These objectives are not necessarily complementary in a minerals-exporting economy. This paper, part of an Human Sciences Research Council project on the relationship between exchange rates and…
read more >>A Contribution to the Analysis of the Employment Creation Potential of Recycling in South Africa
Lowitt offers an overview of global trends in recycling, defined as the recovery and use of waste. She identifies innovations and explores how these innovations can be used in South Africa. It goes on to investigate the economic benefits of, and current thinking on, recycling, and suggests that waste should be seen as a national…
read more >>Innovation in Resource-Based Technology Clusters: Investigating the Lateral Migration Thesis – The manufacture of biodegradable plastics from maize starch
Walker & Farisani offer a case study of the lateral migration of technology from a resource sector in South Africa. They explore the role of collaborative partnerships and linkages in the diversification process of firms, particularly those that have moved from primary resource-based activities into high-value niche applications. Their focus is on the production of…
read more >>Analysing Intersectoral Outsourcing in South Africa
Tregenna examines whether services employment growth in South Africa can be explained by outsourcing or alternatively expanded activity. To do this, Tregenna develops a new methodology for quantifying the extent that outsourcing contributes to shifts in employment between sectors. Using occupational and sectoral data from the October Household Surveys (1997–1999) and Labour Force Surveys (2000–2005),…
read more >>Which Sectors Can Be Engines of Growth and Employment in South Africa? An Analysis of Manufacturing and Services
Tregenna investigates whether manufacturing still has the potential to be the engine of growth in South Africa, or whether services can play this role in future. International comparisons reveal that while the share of manufacturing value added in South Africa is high for the country’s level of income, the share of manufacturing employment is less…
read more >>Accounting for Changes in Manufacturing employment in South Africa
Tregenna assesses the components and possible causal determinants of changes in manufacturing employment in South Africa. She focuses on the relationships between capital stock, capacity utilisation, relative factor utilisation, and employment. Basic decomposition techniques are used to investigate the extent to which these factors account for changes in employment between 1970 and 2004. Although this…
read more >>Manufacturing Exports and Employment Growth
Davies considers the role of manufacturing exports in creating employment. It looks at the potential and limitations of the sector itself, and also its interaction with other sectors. He assesses where export growth might occur, and the contribution of different sectors to such growth, given their labour intensity, backward and forward linkages, and export dependence….
read more >>Promotion of Secondary Industrial Development & Clustering in Mpumalanga: stainless steel and chemicals clusters
“Altman et al. assess the potential for the development of a stainless steel cluster in the Middleburg/ Witbank area and a general petrochemicals cluster in Secunda. They identify concrete opportunities that would provide a platform for the development of small and medium enterprises that will generate employment opportunities. They reveal opportunities for cluster development in…
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