Policy Briefs

Mobile broadband is the main means of connecting to the internet in developing countries, where fixed-line coverage is typically limited or non-existent. As a result, governments in developing countries are seeking means by which mobile broadband penetration might be increased.

South Africa is the most unequal country in the world, with a Gini coefficient of 0.63 in 2015 according to World Bank statistics. This is a consequence of apartheid-era racial discrimination policies (Leibbrandt et al., 2010). The top 10% of income-earners earn thirty times more than the bottom 10...

Uncovering the key drivers of business cycles of commodity exporting economies continues to dominate the literature on small open and emerging market economies.

Evidence from California shows that paid maternity leave leads to improved health outcomes among elementary school children.

Climate change has brought renewed and increasing attention to the productivity and efficiency of the water sector. This has stimulated interest, which has manifested itself in the increased application of statistical tools to measure the productivity and efficiency of water utilities. Policymakers...

The income gap between the self-employed and wage earners is of interest particular in developing countries. This is because this gap can explain to some extent the observed inequality in income. Literature suggests that in developing countries formal sector workers tend to be wage earners while...

Most of the recent literature analysing the adjustments of macroeconomic variables to fiscal policy shocks rely on the inclusion of non-Ricardian households to generate a positive response of consumption to an increase in government spending. This paper examines the dynamic effects of government...

Across the world, efforts by countries to gain international competitiveness and boost export levels has generated renewed interest on the response of trade balances to exchange rate devaluations or depreciations. The trade literature posits that the existence of adjustment lags delays improvements...

Since the early 1980s, many governments have investigated the possibility of utilising access to microloans, as a pathway to grow economies out of unemployment and thereby improve people’s quality of life. Studies that have previously investigated the impact of microloans, found a positive...

Background The conventional approach to measuring quality of life was centred on the use of income measures such as GDP. There has, however, been growing acceptance of the limitations of this approach and of the need for a more multifaceted measure of quality of life. For example, the Report by the...