Demographic changes and asset prices in an overlapping generations model
We examine the effect of demographic shifts on asset prices in an overlapping generations model with endogenous population dynamics. We establish a robust inverse relationship between returns and the old dependency ratio. We document the absence of a simple monotonic relationship between asset prices and demographic parameters. Returns depend on the joint evolution of fertility, […]
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 […]
Competition policy and regulation in digital markets
A 1-day ERSA workshop took place on 30th September 2022 in Stellenbosch. During the workshop prominent academics working in the field of Industrial Organization and Digital Economics provided short lectures on relevant competition and regulatory issues in digital markets. In the remaining time, workshop participants presented their research and discussion papers. Workshop Program Elvis Avenyo […]
Deposit Insurance and Depositor Behavior: Evidence from Colombia
Abstract: We exploit an unexpected increase in the Colombian insurance threshold to investigate how depositors respond to higher deposit insurance. A monthly depositor-level panel shows that both the level and growth of deposits rise with higher coverage. This increment is driven by individuals who were fully and nearly-fully insured before the policy. A survey of bank […]
Contagion across financial markets during COVID-19: A look at volatility spillovers between the stock and foreign exchange markets in South Africa
The onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) and previous crises have heightened interest in the interaction of stock market and exchange rate volatility. This paper aims to investigate the interdependence and volatility transmissions between the stock and foreign exchange markets for South Africa over the period 1979:01–2021:08, including the effect the COVID-19 pandemic has […]
Bridging the Divide Online Course: Fundamentals of Effective Communication
This course will comprise four sessions as follows: Sessions 1 and 2: Academic writing These sessions will focus on introducing participants to key aspects of academic writing. This will focus on aspects such as structure, style, academic “voice”, and other conventions of the genre. Sessions 3 and 4: Presenting your research These sessions will focus […]
Indebted Demand by Amir Sufi
The topic for the third virtual meeting is ‘Indebted Demand’. The meeting will take place on 26 October at 4:00 pm (CAT). Professor Amir Sufi will present on the topic. Professor Amir Sufi is the Bruce Lindsay Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He is also […]
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 […]
Late colonial antecedents of modern democracy
Some of the most contested questions in political science and political economy revolve around the conditions under which democratization is likely to happen and when democracy becomes a stable institutional choice. This paper revisits the particular claim in the democratization literature that the type of colonization, and particularly the degree to which Europeans settled in […]
The Effect of Tobacco and Alcohol Control Policies on Household Spending Patterns in Kenya: An Approach Using Matched Difference in Differences
This paper examines the effect of tobacco and alcohol control policies on tobacco and alcohol consumption patterns and the evolution of crowding-out effects on other household expenditure in Kenya. The current literature on crowding-out does not provide a defensible instrumental variable for a system of demand equations. This paper uses Matched Difference in Differences (MDID) […]
Missing boys: Explaining South Africa’s unbalanced sex ratio, 1894-2011
At the beginning of the twentieth century the sex ratio for South Africans differed markedly according to racial group. Those for white South Africans remained almost invariable, with more boys than girls, while black South Africans had a clear majority of girls, a situation that the literature has almost completely overlooked. This high proportion of […]
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 […]
Adapting Herzberg: Predicting attendees’ satisfaction and intention to re-visit a festival – An Ordered Logit Approach
This study adapts Herzberg’s two-factor theory to investigate the satisfaction levels of attendees at the 2016 Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) held in Cameroon. Specifically, it investigates how satisfaction is influenced by a-priori motivations for attending the event, which, in turn, affects revisit intentions. Using survey data collected from 324 participants at the festival, […]
The effects of price and non-price policies on cigarette consumption in South Africa
The health consequences of smoking are serious and have been frequently detailed. A reduction in tobacco-related mortality hinges upon the ability to reduce tobacco usage. There is overwhelming evidence that higher cigarette prices reduce cigarettes demand, but little is known about the combined effect of price and non-price policies. This paper extends the analysis of […]
The effect of price and non-price policies on cigarette consumption in South Africa
The health consequences of smoking are quite enormous and have been detailed on countless occasions. As a result of the elevated risk of smoking-related diseases, a smoker from early life can be expected to die about 6 years earlier than a comparable non-smoker.
Skills, employment, strong local institutions and good relationships between people and parks can counter subsistence poaching
Subsistence poaching can severely threaten biodiversity and community livelihoods. It can lead to a decrease in wildlife abundance, and in the worst cases, extinction of certain species. This can have devastating ripple effects throughout ecosystems, jeopardize food security and impact on rural economies dependent on wildlife through, for example, tourism.
Adapting Herzberg: Predicting attendees’ satisfaction and intention to re-visit a local festival in Cameroon – An Ordered Logit Approach
Globally, the tourism sector has been identified as crucial to attaining the goal of sustainable development. Its effectiveness as a tool for sustainable development lies in its potential to promote local economic development by creating both economic, environmental and socio-cultural sustainability. The rise of Festival tourism emphasises the socio-cultural dimension of this sustainability while contributing […]
Benefits of regulation vs. competition where inequality is high: The case of mobile telephony in South Africa
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%.
Benefits of regulation vs competition where inequality is high: The case of mobile telephony in South Africa
We test for the distributional effects of regulation and entry in the mobile telecommunications sector in a highly unequal country, South Africa. Using six waves of a consumer survey of over 134,000 individuals between 2009-2014, we estimate a discrete-choice model allowing for individual-specific price-responsiveness and preferences for network operators. Next, we use a demand and […]
Risk Preferences and the Impact of Credit and Insurance on Farm Technology Uptake
We use a series of credit and insurance simulation games to test the role of access to credit and insurance on magnitude and timing of farm technology uptake with small-scale farmers in South Africa. Using Cumulative Prospect Theory, we assess how insurance impacts technology uptake given risk preferences. Our findings suggest that risk aversion is […]
Motivating teachers in rural Zambia using a monetary incentive
Like many developing countries, the achievement gap between rural and urban areas in Zambia remains substantial. For example, the share of students scoring well on the Primary School Leaving Examinations (the Grade 7 Examinations) in rural areas is about half what it is in urban areas, according to data from the Examinations Council of Zambia […]
‘The Prince and the Pauper’: The effect of inherited-wealth status on productivity in the lab
This experiment contributes to the developing literature on the relationship between inherited-wealth status and effort provision in the labor market. This relationship is of interest beyond the lab the context of continuing national and global concern about intergenerational inequality. Inequality, and differences cultural and class backgrounds may be expected to dominate behavioral differences in South […]
Factors influencing people’s perceptions towards conservation of transboundary wildlife resources. The case of the Great-Limpopo Trans-frontier Conservation Area
Local people’s perceptions of protected areas greatly determine the success of conservation efforts in Southern Africa as these perceptions affect people’s attitudes and behaviour in respect to conservation. As a result, the involvement of local communities in transboundary wildlife conservation is now viewed as an integral part of regional development initiatives. Building on unique survey […]
Teacher pay and educational outcomes: Evidence from the rural hardship allowance in Zambia
This paper studies the effect of unconditional teacher salary increases on teacher and student outcomes. To study the issue, we evaluate the rural hardship allowance in Zambia, which corresponds to a salary increase of 20%. This allowance is allocated to schools on the basis of a distance criterion allowing us to use a regression discontinuity […]
“The Power of Nudging: Using Feedback, Competition and Responsibility Assignment to Save Electricity in a Non-Residential Setting”
We use behavioural insights to design nudges leveraging social comparison and assignment of responsibility aimed at reducing electricity consumption in a large provincial government office building with 24 floors. Results from a randomized control trial show that floors participating in a treatment with inter-floor competitions and tips reduced energy consumption by 9%, while those that […]
The Prince and the Pauper: The effect of inherited-wealth status on productivity in the lab
There is limited theory and empirical evidence about the effects of inherited wealth and social comparison on individual labor-market behavior. Investigating the impact of inherited-wealth status – an accident of birth rather than an outcome of competition – contributes to the understanding of the mechanisms underlying intergenerational inequality. This lab experiment analyses whether framed inherited […]
The Demand for Cigarettes: New Evidence from South Africa
This paper provides an extensive analysis of the demand for cigarettes based on longitudinal data drawn from the South Africa National Income and Dynamic Study (NIDS: 2008 – 2014). We compare the results of the pooled OLS (POLS), the standard two-part model, the random and the fi xed effect (RE, FE) panel regression. Like previous […]
Welfare and Environmental Impact of Incentive Based Conservation: Evidence from Kenyan Community Forest Associations
This paper focuses on whether the provision of landless forest-adjacent communities with options to grow appropriate food crops inside forest reserves during early stages of reforestation programmes enable vertical transition of low income households and conserves forests. We consider the welfare and environmental impact of a unique incentive scheme known as the Plantation Establishment and […]
Determinants of Successful Collective Management of Forest Resources: Evidence from Kenyan Community Forest Associations
Participation of local communities in management and utilization of forest resources through collective action has become widely accepted as a possible solution to failure of centralized top down approaches to forest conservation. Developing countries have thus resorted to devolution of forest management through initiatives such as Participatory Forest Management (PFM) and Joint Forest Management (JFM). […]
Credit market heterogeneity, balance sheet (in)depence, and financial shocks
We find that credit market heterogeneity plays an important role in attenuating the impact of financial shocks by allowing borrowers to substitute away from the affected credit market. The shock attenuation property of credit market heterogeneity works through asset-pricing channel and substitution toward alternative credit types. The degree of attenuation offered by credit heterogeneity can […]
Lifestyle and Income-related Inequality in Health in South Africa
Evidence suggests that lifestyle factors may explain the income-related inequality in self-reported health. This paper expands this literature by examining the contribution of smoking and alcohol consumption, incorporating more objective measures of health directly associated with these lifestyle practices. The Erreygers’ corrected concentration index is used to measure health inequalities over time. The indices are […]
What’s in a Name? Reputation and Monitoring in the Audit Market
We demonstrate a tension between monitoring and reputation incentives when moving from collective reputation environments to individual reputation environments by analyzing a new rule. After January 2017, the name of the engagement partner has to be disclosed in all audit reports issued in the USA. We study the resulting change in auditor incentives and show […]
Measurement and analysis of the evolution of institutions in Nigeria
“Institutions matter” has become a generally accepted premise in development economics. The growth and development problems in Nigeria are also common knowledge. To better understand these problems a proper characterization of institutions in Nigeria is essential. Conducting empirical test of the role of institutions in Nigeria’s growth and development can prove challenging due to lack of institutional data set […]
Postliberation Politics: Evidence from Demographic Determinants of South Africa Voting Behaviour in the 2009 National Election
In this paper we examine demographic drivers of South African voting behavior in the 2009 national election. We use a novel data set, which combines census and voting data at the ward level, representing the highest level of disaggregation of South African elections to date. Unsurprisingly, blacks are more likely to vote for the ANC, whites more likely […]
Using Minigames to Explain Imperfect Outcomes in the Ultimatum Game
In evolutionary game theory, “minigames” with reduced strategy sets are sometimes analysed in lieu of more complex models with many strategies. Are these simplified versions up to the task of explaining pertinent dynamic features of the larger models? This paper looks at the ultimatum game, in which it is known that a noisy evolutionary model leads to stable dynamic […]
Path dependence and interdependence between institutions and development
Path dependence theory, within the institutions context, means that the path of institutions promulgated within a system historically determines the nature of institutions that will ensue within the same system in the present and in the future. The paper makes use of a newly constructed index of institutions quality, and addresses three related questions; the […]
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