Publication: South Africa Economic Update, September 2017: Innovation for Productivity and Inclusiveness
Loading...
Date
2017-09
ISSN
Published
2017-09
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This 10th South Africa Economic Update offers a review of the country’s recent economic and social developments and outlook in the context of global economic prospects. It focuses on the role of innovation in fostering economic growth, job creation and poverty reduction in an environment in which more South Africans are getting poorer. Main conclusions emerging from this analysis suggest that policies to spur innovation can go a long way in addressing unemployment, poverty and inequality in South Africa. It is our hope that South Africa will continue, and possibly expand, using the World Bank vast body of knowledge, global experience and its convening power as a platform for exchange and peer-to-peer learning in the identification of pragmatic solutions to reach the country’s National Development Plan’s goals.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2017. South Africa Economic Update, September 2017: Innovation for Productivity and Inclusiveness. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/28439 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Africa's Pulse, September 2011 : An Analysis of Issues Shaping Africa's Economic Future(Washington, DC, 2011-09)This Africa's pulse newsletter includes the following heading: recent economic trends; and the challenge of employment in Africa: raising the productivity of the informal sector.Publication South Africa Economic Update, January 2017(World Bank, Pretoria, 2017-01)The first chapter of the ninth edition of the economic update discusses recent economic development in South Africa. It underlines that economic growth continued to decelerate in 2016, marking the third consecutive year of negative per capita growth. Nonetheless, 2016 may mark the trough of South Africa’s business cycle. A modest recovery is now foreseen for 2017 and 2018, driven modestly by rising commodity prices, easing inflationary pressures and a pickup in credit stimulating household consumption demand. By contrast, the continuation of the needed fiscal consolidation efforts should not offer any significant stimulus to GDP growth. The report argues that private investment will be the determining factor influencing the GDP trajectory. On the one hand, continued weak private investment would further undermine growth prospects, raise again the likelihood of a costly rating downgrade, and perpetuate a vicious circle of low growth–low investment. On the other hand, accelerated investment could benefit from a still weak and more stable rand, improving electricity capacity, and less fractious labor relations, to boost exports and growth and stabilize the capital account. Accelerating investment will require providing a predictable business environment, not least through greater policy certainty. The second chapter discusses the relationship between private investment and jobs creation. It reveals that in recent years, private investment increasingly went to less productive sectors, generating negative total factor productivity growth. It analyses using firm level data the effectiveness and efficiency of investment tax incentives and suggests that, overall, tax incentives generated since 2006 additional private investment exceeding foregone fiscal revenue, and contained the contraction recorded in some sectors, manufacturing in particular. It nonetheless makes the case for re-orienting these incentives towards sectors where their effectiveness can be observed (agriculture, manufacturing, trade, construction, and other services) and away from sectors on which they have no tangible impact (mining, finance, transport, and electricity). Sectors which would benefit from re-oriented incentives are also those enjoying the largest employment multipliers, thus amplifying the impact of incentives on jobs creation. The impact of these incentives would equally be magnified by the emergence of new comparative advantages in manufacturing and trade, resulting from the decline in commodity prices and the protracted depreciation of the Rand since 2012.Publication South Africa Economic Update, February 2016(World Bank, Pretoria, 2016-02)Promoting faster growth and poverty alleviation through competition is particularly important for South Africa, which is facing weak economic growth and limited fiscal resources and has to look to avenues outside the fiscal space to stimulate faster sustainable growth and progress towards its ultimate goal of eliminating poverty, outlined in the 2030 National Development Plan (NDP). The update presents a candid assessment of South Africa’s economic prospects. With growth declining in per capita terms the NDP goals are moving further out of reach. South Africa urgently needs fundamental reforms to kick start growth and promote job creation. Advancing with reforms to improve the lives of South Africans is particularly attractive, since they hold the potential to boost growth and speed up poverty alleviation. Competition policy demonstrates the power of bold reform to ease pressures in times of a tight public purse. The report is organized as follows: section one presents economic developments and prospects, and section two presents promoting faster growth and poverty alleviation through effective competition policy.Publication South Africa Economic Update, August 2015(Washington, DC, 2015-08-14)Global growth hit a soft patch at the start of 2015. In the first quarter it slowed to 2.0 percent, quarter on quarter (q/q) annualized, from 2.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014. The slowdown was reflected in a decline in global manufacturing activity, on the back of weak industrial production and goods trade data, especially in large emerging markets. Among high-income countries, economic activity is strengthening. Euro Area growth picked up to 1.6 percent in the first quarter of 2015 from 1.3 percent the previous quarter. Growth in Japan accelerated to 2.4 percent in the first quarter from 1.1 percent in the previous quarter. For the second quarter, despite the uncertainty surrounding Greece, the Euro Area Composite PMI in July remained close to a four-year high. Confidence indicators for the second quarter point to further improvements, while indicators in Japan also suggest continued, albeit moderate, growth.Publication South Africa Economic Update : Fiscal Policy and Redistribution in an Unequal Society(Washington, DC, 2014-11)The global economic recovery remains uneven, as growth in the United States is gaining momentum but appears to be at risk of stalling in the Euro Area and Japan. U.S. growth is expected to gain pace over the rest of the year and into 2015 as employment prospects boost real income growth and confidence. Following the Euro Area s exit from recession in 2013, GDP was flat in 2014, and preliminary data for the third quarter suggest slowing growth momentum amid weak domestic demand, ongoing balance sheet adjustments, a fragmented banking sector, and rising geopolitical risks. In Japan, a sales tax hike in April caused a more significant contraction in activity than expected, while exports failed to pick up.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Lebanon Economic Monitor, Fall 2022(Washington, DC, 2022-11)The economy continues to contract, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. Public finances improved in 2021, but only because spending collapsed faster than revenue generation. Testament to the continued atrophy of Lebanon’s economy, the Lebanese Pound continues to depreciate sharply. The sharp deterioration in the currency continues to drive surging inflation, in triple digits since July 2020, impacting the poor and vulnerable the most. An unprecedented institutional vacuum will likely further delay any agreement on crisis resolution and much needed reforms; this includes prior actions as part of the April 2022 International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff-level agreement (SLA). Divergent views among key stakeholders on how to distribute the financial losses remains the main bottleneck for reaching an agreement on a comprehensive reform agenda. Lebanon needs to urgently adopt a domestic, equitable, and comprehensive solution that is predicated on: (i) addressing upfront the balance sheet impairments, (ii) restoring liquidity, and (iii) adhering to sound global practices of bail-in solutions based on a hierarchy of creditors (starting with banks’ shareholders) that protects small depositors.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication Doing Business 2014 : Understanding Regulations for Small and Medium-Size Enterprises(Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2013-10-28)Eleventh in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 185 economies, Doing Business 2014 measures regulations affecting 11 areas of everyday business activity: Starting a business, Dealing with construction permits, Getting electricity, Registering property, Getting credit, Protecting investors, Paying taxes, Trading across borders, Enforcing contracts, Closing a business, Employing workers. The report updates all indicators as of June 1, 2013, ranks economies on their overall “ease of doing business”, and analyzes reforms to business regulation – identifying which economies are strengthening their business environment the most. The Doing Business reports illustrate how reforms in business regulations are being used to analyze economic outcomes for domestic entrepreneurs and for the wider economy. Doing Business is a flagship product by the World Bank and IFC that garners worldwide attention on regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship. More than 60 economies use the Doing Business indicators to shape reform agendas and monitor improvements on the ground. In addition, the Doing Business data has generated over 870 articles in peer-reviewed academic journals since its inception.