Policy Implications of Climate Change | Economic Research Southern Africa

Request for Proposals: The role of cities as drivers of growth and employment

Background Urbanization in South Africa is expected to reach 80% by 2050, according to the United Nations. Capturing the potential benefits and mitigating the potential costs of rising urbanization raises many questions for South Africa. Of principal interest to ERSA are questions relating to the role of cities as drivers of growth and employment, while […]

Can we shield South Africa from climate change?

The country could become an apocalyptic wasteland if it fails to take future-proofing seriously. Current crises such as water shortages and load-shedding exist because we ignored the initial warning signs — as we are doing with the environment…

Foresight Africa 2023: Presentation

Brookings Institution’s Flagship Foresight Africa 2023 was written by over 60 distinguished authors from around the world, including academics, policy makers and the Mayor of Cape Town. It highlights seven key areas of focus this year: 1. Economic recovery and growth 2. Food security 3. Education and Skills 4. Health 5. Gender 6. Climate Change7. […]

Sanctioned quotas vs information provisioning for community wildlife conservation in Zimbabwe: A framed field experiment approach

We investigate the behavioural responses of resource users to policy interventions like sanctioned quotas and information provisioning. We do so in a context when multiple resources (pastures and wild animal stocks) are connected and could substantially and drastically deteriorate as a result of management. We perform an experimental study among communities that are managing common […]

CVM3 Regional Workshop Presentation: Southern Africa

Global temperatures have already increased by 1.1°C relative to pre-industrial levels. Further climate change is inevitable and each fraction of a degree of additional warming increases the adaptation challenge for the vulnerable and poor. The five Southern African countries (Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Eswatini, South Africa) warm at above the global average. How vulnerable is the […]

Foresight Africa 2023: A Southern African Perspective

Please join the Brookings Institution and Economics Research Southern Africa at the University of Pretoria Leadership Centre 2nd Entrance EMS Building Main Campus, Hatfield, where we will be launching the Foresight Africa Report 2023. As we continue to promote the discussion and development of economic policy in Southern Africa, we support the Brookings Institution in […]

Climate Vulnerability of Southern Africa

Occasional Paper 03 Global temperatures have already increased by 1.1°C relative to pre-industrial levels. Further climate change is inevitable and each fraction of a degree of additional warming increases the adaptation challenge for the vulnerable and poor. The five Southern African countries (Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Eswatini, South Africa) warm at above the global average. How […]

CVM3 Regional Workshop: South Africa

As a regional partner of the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) and Vulnerable Twenty Group (V20), we’re hosting a workshop on how climate change directly impacts both present and future environments and economies, especially in economies that are heavily dependent on agriculture. In this workshop, Brent Cloete presents his findings of the Southern African Regional Analysis, […]

ESSA National PhD Conference 2023

ESSA in collaboration with Economic Research South Africa (ERSA) and the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) is hosting its first official National PhD Conference. The conference will run for two days and will take place during the week of 6 to 10 February 2023. We are pleased to announce that the University of […]

Request for Proposals: Lerumo Intellectual Support Program

Thank you to those of you that submitted your proposals. As part of our mandate to support strong economic research, we have developed the Lerumo Intellectual Support Program (LISP). This initiative aims to deepen and strengthen international relationships and develop new and flexible research ideas and networks. We are therefore requesting proposals that are aligned […]

Call for Work: Request for Proposals: Lerumo Intellectual Support Program

Climate Vulnerability Monitor Key Points

The Climate Vulnerability Monitor is a unique global assessment at the national level of present and potential future climate change impacts on the environment, economy and public health. Using 32 distinct indicators of socioeconomic and environmental change and impact phenomena, The Monitor consolidates the latest research from the scientific literature on the attribution of climate […]

Climate Vulnerability Monitor, 3rd Edition (CVM3)

The Climate Vulnerability Monitor is a unique global assessment at the national level of present and potential future climate change impacts on the environment, economy and public health. The Monitor consolidates the latest research from the scientific literature on the attribution of climate change in 32 distinct indicators of socioeconomic and environmental change and impact […]

Modelling 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 household. We apply the method in a case study where data on required energy […]

Why and how to measure the contribution of South Africa’s ocean economy

This paper articulates why it is important to measure the contribution to the national economy of South Africa’s ocean economy and how such contribution may be measured. It points out much is unknown about the ocean’s natural resources. It describes the growing interest of the South African government in the economic development of South Africa’s […]

Why SA isn’t getting the growth it needs

The Covid Project — a research project to assess SA’s economic prospects after the pandemic — has concluded that the country’s growth plan is not working. More informed reforms are urgently needed. The findings of the Covid Project — a series of independent papers commissioned from several of SA’s leading research economists — are alarming […]

Second Annual UP PhD Workshop in Economics Held

This year’s workshop, organised by Manoel Bittencourt and Jesse Naidoo, was open to PhD students at all African universities, and also to PhD students at institutions outside the continent working on topics related to Africa. The workshop featured twelve presentations by students at universities in South Africa, Togo, Benin, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United […]

The long-term effects of early-life exposure to weather shocks: Evidence from Tanzania

We examine whether early-life exposure to rainfall shocks has a long-term impact on health, education, and the socioeconomic statuses of individuals in rural Tanzania, where livelihoods heavily depend on rain-fed agriculture. We use a unique panel of data from a Kagera Health and Development Survey (KHDS) in which children were followed from childhood (1991) to […]

Climate change and child health: A Nigerian perspective

The detrimental effect of climate change on health is becoming an essential topic of economic research and policymaking. The negative impact of rising temperatures and extreme weather events on children’s health outcomes and their human capital is especially concerning. This study investigates the effects of a changing climate, in terms of changes in the monthly […]

Revisiting the accuracy of inflation forecasts in Nigeria: The oil price-exchange rate-asymmetry perspectives

Motivated by the distinctive paradoxical nature of the Nigerian economy as the only OPEC oil-exporting economy that yet depends heavily on the importation of gasoline, we are compelled to re-examine the accuracy of the oil-based augmented Philips curve model in the predictability of inflation. Using quarterly data from 1970 to 2020, we investigate whether including […]

Does the uptake of multiple climate smart agriculture practices enhance household savings, food security and household vulnerability to climate change? Insights from Zimbabwe

Climate change and variability poses a significant hindrance on agricultural productivity. The adverse effects are particularly concerning in many African countries that rely more on rainfed subsistence agriculture for livelihood. The promotion of climate smart agriculture technologies as a pathway to enhancing food security, farmer’s welfare, and providing climate adaptation and mitigation benefits is one […]

Part 4: Building back for a sustainable future

The discussion is based on two papers: “Building back fairer from the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa: Some first step reforms in an era of fiscal constraints”, by Channing Arndt, Robert J. Davies, Sherwin Gabriel, Laurence Harris, Michael Sachs and Dirk van Seventer and “Building a competitive and dynamic green industrial sector in South Africa” […]

Building a competitive and dynamic green industrial sector in South Africa after COVID-19

Policy Paper 28 COVID-19 gave the world a glimpse of how devastating a pandemic can be to economies and livelihoods. Climate change, given its permanence, would be far more devastating, hence the renewed efforts at the global level to mitigate climate change. South Africa, one of the dirtiest producers in the world, faces the challenge […]

Transhumant pastoralism, climate change and conﬂict in Africa

We consider the effects of climate change on seasonally migrant populations that herd livestock – i.e., transhumant pastoralists – in Africa. Traditionally, transhumant pastoralists beneﬁt from a cooperative relationship with sedentary agriculturalists whereby arable land is used for crop farming in the wet season and animal grazing in the dry season. Droughts can disrupt this […]

Impact of technological progress on carbon emissions in different country income groups

This study examines the complex relationship between carbon emissions and technological progress in a sample of 60 countries, divided into four categories based on their per capita income between the periods of 1989-2018. For robustness purposes and due to the broad definition of technology, we use six different proxies to represent technology; namely: Information and […]

The effects of technology intensity in manufacturing on CO2 emissions: Evidence from developing countries

Industrialisation is recognised as important for developing countries’ growth and ‘catching up’ with advanced economies, but is also associated with harmful carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and hence with climate change. This poses a challenge to sustainable development, particularly for late industrialisers: how to industrialise while also mitigating CO2 emissions. This paper investigates the effect of […]

Policy Bulletin 02: Reflections on Aspects of Public Finance and Fiscal Policy in South Africa

After the COVID-19 crisis is over, South Africa will face a fiscal mountain that looks insurmountable. Many of the problems experienced in the public finances originated outside of the fiscus and have to be addressed at source, neither fiscal discretion, nor fiscal rules or any fiscal framework, will be effective unless there is collective commitment […]

Prenatal health and weather-related shocks under social safety net policy in Kenya

Exposure to weather shocks around the time of birth has been shown to have deleterious effects on later life outcomes. In the short run, such shocks can lead to income loss, especially when households are not insured but rely heavily on rainfed agricultural activities. In the long run, however, they can cause a reduction in […]

The South African – United States Sovereign Bond Spread and its Association with Macroeconomic Fundamentals

The yield spread of South African to United States 10 year government bonds over the last 5 years has increased substantially to levels approaching those last seen during the mid-1980s. This yield spread increase is replicated in spreads relative to long-term German bonds, as well as for the spread of state owned enterprises (ESKOM) to […]

Monetary policy and inequality

South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world and this high level of inequality has persisted over time. While research has demonstrated that fiscal policy is generally progressive and contributes to reductions in inequality, see for example Inchauste et al. (2015) and Maboshe and Woolard (2018), the effect of monetary policy […]

Optimal Targeted Lockdowns in a Multi-Group SIR Model

We study targeted lockdowns in a multi-group SIR model where infection, hospitalization and fatality rates vary between groups—in particular between the “young”,“the middle-aged” and the “old”. Our model enables a tractable quantitative analysis of optimal policy. For baseline parameter values for the COVID-19 pandemic applied to the US, we find that optimal policies differentially targeting […]

The political economy of palm oil expansion and deforestation in Indonesia

This paper studies the interactions between political and economic incentives to foster forest conversion in Indonesian districts. Using a district–level panel data set from 2001 to 2016, we analyze variation in remotely sensed forest loss and forest fires as well as measures of land use licensing. We link these outcomes to economic incentives to expand […]

Policy Bulletin 03: Macroeconomic policy options for a savings constrained economy: the case of South Africa

Economic growth requires delivering a credible fiscal consolidation plan that shifts spending towards investment in infrastructure, human capital accumulation and a environmentally sustainable economy. Fiscal policy has to move first, reducing risk premia and the neutral real rate, allowing monetary policy to respond beyond what has been able to do until now, constrained by the […]

Emergent 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 suffer low adoption rates typical of technology adoption in these regions. Recent evidence shows […]

Competition and Gender in the Lab vs Field: Experiments from off-grid Renewable Energy Entrepreneurs in Rural Rwanda

We fill the gap by examining how gender attitudes and performance under competitive situations in the lab, reflects microenterprise outcomes in the renewable energy sector of Rwanda. — a country with progressive gender policies despite its traditional patriarchal set-up. We use the standard Niederle and Vesterlund (2007) experimental design in addition to a unique dataset […]

The effects of presentation formats in choice experiments

Although stated-preference surveys take various forms, the use of either text or visuals to represent attributes is uncontroversial, and they remain the commonly used formats. While prior research has investigated the impact of these commonly used formats in other disciplines, little is known about their effects on results in terms of relative importance in environmental […]