Waldo Krugell

• North-West University

The aim of this paper is to examine the diversification of South Africa's exports over the period 1994 to 2012. A decomposition of export growth shows that exports of non-fuel primary commodities as well as medium-skill and technology-intensive manufactured products increased. The largest decrease was in the export of resource-intensive manufacture...

This paper examines the micro-level factors that constrain Zimbabwean firms in the countrys post-conflict environment. An analysis was conducted into what Zimbabwean firms see as their most debilitating obstacle to achieving higher levels of competitiveness. Among the findings was that so-called non-politically constrained firms face many challenge...

Small and medium-sized enterprises are often seen as drivers of economic growth and development by generating employment opportunities. However, for SMEs to be successful they need finance. Access to finance has been found to be a major obstacle to SMEs’ ability to do business in South Africa. This paper takes a closer look at firms, their access t...

The internal resource barriers that firms experience influence their capability to export. This in turn influences the export performance of the country and the extent to which exports contribute to economic growth. The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of resource barriers, more specifically firm size, productivity, firm-specific capital...

In 1994, South Africa adopted the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) and emphasised the delivery of services to meet basic needs. Since then great strides have been made to redress past social inequalities. However, analysis of these successes have been limited to national or provincial aggregates, when much of the responsibility for me...

The relationship between globalization1 and economic development is a topical and controversial one. Many economists see the benefits of globalization outweighing its disadvantages, and ascribe the rise in living standards, especially in Asia to the openness of trade brought on by globalization. Dissenting voices however, point to globalization as...

In contrast to most research on the non-monetary quality of life, which relies on subjective indicators, we construct objective measures of the non-monetary quality of life using regression methods, for South Africa's cities. We also analyse the extent to which the various cities have been able to turn improvements in per capita incomes (monetary q...

Recent research has identified what determines local exports and what policies might make them grow. Regions with higher Gross Domestic Product per capita, faster population growth, higher levels of skills, greater export diversification and shorter distances to ports have experienced faster export growth. However, the results of regression models...

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South Africa is one of the wealthiest countries on the African continent. The high national level (and growth) of GDP per capita, however, masks significant differences in economic performance across South Africa's regions. This paper uses (spatial) Markov chain techniques to describe the evolution of the entire cross-section regional income distri...

  This research note examines the determinants of economic growth at the sub-national level in South Africa, and investigates cross-regional medium term (1998–2002) growth rate differentials between 354 magisterial districts. A dynamic panel data regression model is used that includes measures of geography (distance and natural resources) as well a...

Are South African cities to small? Given the history of South Africa’s spatial development, one might expect that South African cities might be under-sized, and not over-sized as in many other developing countries. It is found that the rank-size distribution explains the sizes of South Africa’s cities but that Zipf’s Law does not hold for the count...

South Africa is characterised by significant inequality in spatial economic activity. Whether future growth and development on a sub-national level in South Africa will be such as to reduce this inequality may depend on the economic growth and development of South Africa's largest cities. Our local economic growth empirics show some indications of...

This paper examines the determinants of economic growth at sub -national level in South Africa, and test for convergence in income per capita between 354 magisterial districts over the period 1998 to 2002. A dynamic panel data regression model is used that includes measures of geography (distance and natural resources) as well as more recent estima...

: t Submission for conference Gateway L Abstract: In 1994 the newly elected ANC-led government in South Africa adopted the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) as its socio-economic policy framework and spelled out key pillars of delivery, including meeting basic needs and developing human resources. Since then great strides forward have...

In this paper, we attempt to provide empirical evidence on the significance of domestic transport costs in exports and the spatial location of manufacturing exporters. We use spatially disaggregated data on exports and manufacturing from South Africa and estimate modified cubic-spline density functions for manufactured exports from 354 magisterial...

In South Africa more than 32% of the population resides in only six metropolitan areas, and with rapid urbanization (exceeding 4% per annum) the quality of metropolitan city life will increasingly become an indication of the overall quality of life in the country. Some recent evaluations of the growth of South Africa's urban areas have been negativ...

In recent years, transport costs have been recognised as having important and significant impacts on trade patterns and globalised production. Both international and domestic transport costs have been empirically found to affect trade negatively. The effect of transport costs on trade is exacerbated by distance, not only from import markets but als...