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Economic policy has always accorded an important role to export production in the overall growth process in South Africa. Recent policy proposals once again reaffirm this commitment. This paper attempts to ascertain whether the emphasis on export production is justified. Using modern econometric techniques within a multivariate framework, the results show that there is uni-directional Granger-causality running from exports to economic growth in South Africa. In addition, the gross domestic product (GDP) accounting identity underestimates the contribution of exports to economic growth. Thus, deliberate policy measures that stimulate export production will greatly enhance the growth prospects for the South African economy. The results in this paper also indicate that more attention should be given to the promotion of non-primary exports. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional industrial development has been the focus of a number of very specific policy initiatives in South African since the 1960s. Until the end of the 1980s these initiatives were driven by political imperative: to develop the homeland areas and to stem migration to South Africa's cities. They failed on both counts. In the early 1990s, industrial policy was markedly less focused on location. However more recently the Spatial Development Initiatives (SDI) and Industrial Development Zone (IDZ) programmes have both involved the identification of industrial locations and used incentives to encourage firms to locate in these areas. The SDI programme has specifically taken South African regional industrial policy into the southern African region with its cross-border development corridors. The paper questions the underlying rationale for South Africa's regional industrial policy, and in particular the role of incentives in influencing firm-level decisions, including their location decisions. The tentative conclusion is that there is no reason to suppose that the South African government could or can do better than the market in directing firm-level location decisions, and that industrial policy incentives may be far less important to the firm than macroeconomic and market conditions. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alternative conceptions of the link between social and political institutions and economic growth are explored theoretically and empirically. A number of plausible hypotheses found in the literature are found to have distinct implications for social steady state, including the possibility of low income steady state institutional traps. Empirical evidence suggests considerable heterogeneity between countries in the nature of the link between institutions and economic activity, throwing doubt on the validity of standard cross-sectional growth equations. The application of cointegration techniques of analysis identifies a number of countries that may prove fruitful as the object of more detailed clinical analysis. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduces a series of articles on the aspects of economic transformation since political democratization took place in South Africa in 1994.