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ERSA–SARB Growth Conference
South Africa’s growth and employment crisis is substantially a microeconomic crisis. While the macro settings are improving, growth will not materialise at the rates the country needs unless the micro-level environment allows firms and workers to enter, compete, innovate, hire, export, and grow.
The inaugural ERSA–SARB Growth Conference brought together over 30 leading economists, policymakers, and practitioners to examine the microeconomic foundations of growth — the firm-level dynamics, the regulatory environment, the cost structures, and the institutional arrangements that shape South Africa’s economic prospects. The conference deliberately set aside the macro topics that dominate public discourse to focus on the areas where untapped growth and employment potential is greatest.
The conference formed part of ERSA’s ongoing effort to connect academic research with economic policymaking and to foster dialogue between researchers, policymakers, and industry stakeholders.
The conference took place on 5–6 March 2026 at Hazendal Hotel, Stellenbosch, bringing together over 30 presenters and panellists from government, business, academia, and international organisations — including the OECD, the Presidency, the DTIC, DALRRD, National Treasury, the Competition Commission, and leading universities and research institutions.
Across ten sessions over two days, the programme combined sector-specific sessions on agriculture, manufacturing, and structural transformation with sessions on economy-wide issues including trade, competition, housing, investment, and empowerment, anchored by an OECD keynote on structural policy and a closing panel discussion.
What emerged was a remarkably convergent diagnosis. Regardless of the lens applied, the discussions kept arriving at the same set of constraints — the cost of non-traded inputs, barriers to firm entry and scaling, a missing middle in the firm size distribution, the failure of technology to diffuse, and the overloading of individual policy instruments with too many objectives. The full narrative is set out in the synthesis report.
The programme featured the following sessions:
Agriculture, Employment and Growth
Presented by: Wandile Sihlobo (Agricultural Business Chamber of South Africa)
Panellists: Johann Kirsten (Bureau for Economic Research), Mooketsa Ramasodi (Director General at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forrestry) and Sifiso Ntombela (Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa)
A Vision for Affordable Housing
Presented by: Ivan Turok (University of the Free State) and Justin Visagie (Southern Centre for Inequality Studies)
Panellists: Paul Court (City of Cape Town), Ann Bernstein (Centre for Development and Enterprise) and Geci Karuri-Sebina (Wits School of Governance)
KEYNOTE: OECD Foundations for Growth and Competitiveness and Application to South Africa
Presented by: Dan Andrews (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)
Frontiers of Structural Transformation Research and Its Relevance to South Africa
Presented by: Emmanuel Mensah (University of Groningen) and Calumn Hamilton (University of Groningen Growth and Development Centre)
Panellists: Zukiswa Kimani (Department of Trade, Industry and Competition), Elvis Avenyo (University of Johannesburg) and Isaac Kurusha (National Treasury)
Reigniting South African Investment
Presented by: Roy Havemann (Bureau for Economic Research)
Panellists: Mamokete Lijane (Standard Bank Group) and Saul Musker (the Presidency)
International Trade and Growth
Presented by: Lawrence Edwards (University of Cape Town)
Panellists: Marianne Matthee (Gordon Institute of Business Science) and Xolelwa Mlumbi (Department of Trade, Industry and Competition)
Reforming South African Competition Policy
Presented by: Willem Boshoff (Stellenbosch University)
Panellists: Thando Vilakazi (Competition Tribunal), Nicola Theron (FTI Consulting) and James Hodge (Competition Commission)
Firm Productivity, Labour Mobility, and Participation in South Africa
Presented by: Carol Newman (Trinity College Dublin)
Black Economic Empowerment and Performance in South Africa
Presented by: Stephen Gelb (Overseas Development Institute)
Panellists: Natasha Marrian (Business Day) and Vuyo Jack (Empowerdex)
Closing Panel
Chair: Christopher Loewald (South African Reserve Bank)
Panellists: Khulekani Mathe (Business Unity South Africa), Dan Andrews (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) and Lisette IJssel de Schepper (Bureau for Economic Research)
To view the playlist, please click on the button with the three bars on the top right of the thumbnail below. The related course content can be found at the bottom of the page.
The conference produced two types of written output: a synthesis report drawing together the findings across all ten sessions, and individual session reports for each of the nine substantive sessions.
The synthesis report constructs a coherent narrative from the conference proceedings, organised around the diagnosis that emerged, the cross-cutting constraints that surfaced in every session, and an actionable agenda of implementable ideas arranged by time horizon. It is intended for readers who want to understand what the conference found as a whole without reading each session individually.
The session reports provide a detailed account of each session’s anchor presentation, panel discussion, and audience exchanges. By convention, individuals are identified only on the title page of each report; arguments and ideas in the body text are not attributed to named speakers. The reports are thematic syntheses, not transcripts — readers seeking the full nuance of the exchanges are encouraged to watch the session recordings.
Each conference session was informed by a policy paper commissioned by ERSA, providing the evidence base and analytical framework on which the presentations were built. These papers, with full references, offer a deeper treatment of the topics than the session reports and are intended as standalone contributions to the policy debate.
In addition to the conference papers, this section includes a broader series of ERSA policy papers on South African economic growth. These papers cover topics that extend beyond the conference programme and are part of ERSA’s wider research agenda on the drivers of growth and employment. The collection will continue to grow as new papers are completed.
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