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Featured Policy Briefs
Assessing inflation targeting and its communication
It is less onerous to achieve policy objectives when they are clear, credibly implemented and appropriately communicated, all of which reduces uncertaintyRead moreNov 2019Relating public and private remuneration
The study explores remuneration patterns in South Africa between 2000 and 2017, with a focus on the relationship between public- and private-sector earnings. Although remuneration is likely to increase over time in both sectors, this does not necessarily mean these increases are related to each other.Read moreNov 2019
Latest Working Papers
Does the Pursuit of Outreach Consistently Stifle the Financial Performance of Microfinance Institutions in sub-Saharan Africa?
We study the relationship between outreach and the financial performance of 479 microfinance institutions (MFIs) in 37 countries of sub-Saharan African (SSA), covering the period 1998 to 2012. This study builds on earlier literature on the relationship between outreach and the financial performance...Read moreMar 2020Emergent large traders in smallholder grain markets and their role in enhancing adoption of sustainable agricultural intensification practices in Kenya
Pervasive threats of climate change and land degradation have compounded the low farm productivity problem inherent in sub-Saharan Africa. Though sustainable agricultural intensification practices have been shown to improve resilience of farm production in the face of these emerging threats, they...Read moreMar 2020The optimal monetary and macroprudential policies for the South African economy
We investigate the optimal design and e ectiveness of monetary and macroprudential policies in promoting macroeconomic (price) and financial stability for the South African economy. We develop a New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model featuring a housing market, a banking sector...Read moreFeb 2020Efficiency of provincial public healthcare in South Africa
Background Forty-nine million people or 83 per cent of the entire population of 59 million rely on the public healthcare system in South Africa. Coupled with a shortage of medical professionals, high migration, inequality and unemployment; healthcare provision is under extreme pressure. Due to...Read moreFeb 2020Modelling required energy consumption with equivalence
This study proposes an equivalence scale model for required energy consumption at the household level. The proposed approach equivalises actual energy expenditure across households in two steps: estimating an equivalence scale and dividing actual expenditure by the estimated scale for each...Read moreFeb 2020
Featured Workshop
CANCELLED: Economics of Digitization
08 Apr 2020 to 09 Apr 2020
Cape Town
**Keynote Speakers** Marc Bourreau (Telecom Paris) Frank Verboven (KU Leuven) The first Economic Research Southern Africa workshop on the ‘Economics of Digitization’ will bring together scholars working in the field of Economics of Digitization with both theoretical and empirical focus. Sessions...
