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South Africa is a major commodity exporter, yet it is not clear what impact volatility in commodity prices has on the volatility of its currency. In this study, we examine whether a comprehensive sample of commodities (metals, grains and energy) transmit (or receive) volatility spillovers to (from) the rand exchange rate against the United States dollar for the period January 2000 to May 2022. This study uses the dynamic connectedness and volatility spillover approach of Diebold and Yilmaz (2012, 2014) and Gabauer (2020). Our findings highlight the rand as a net receiver of volatility from almost every commodity examined, with silver and palladium exhibiting the strongest volatility spillover onto the rand. From a transmission perspective, there is some evidence that the rand can be considered a commodity currency for metal exports but there may also be other channels to explain the impact of these commodities on the currency. The results have important implications for policymakers, currency traders and hedgers in commodity markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The haphazard process of maize market liberaliza lion produces conditions for maize to assume a money function in the Tonga-speaking region of Mayindi, Zambia. Drawing on ethnographic data, this article analyzes the ways in which members of polygynous households in Mayindi attempt to navigate the intra-household tensions provoked by the use of a staple food as a form of money. In an effort to reconcile these tensions, co-wives in many polygynous households now distribute maize equally aniong themselves, regardless of how many people each individual woman is responsible for feeding. I argue that while this form of maize distribution leaves some menibers of the household food- insecure, it also serves to maintain critical aspects of women's social identities as mothers to their children and members of their matrilineage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2001 the South African rand depreciated suddenly and steeply against the dollar and euro. This triggered inflation as the prices of imported products gapped upward. To offset the imminent inflationary effects and attract foreign exchange, the Reserve Bank raised interest rates, resulting in slower domestic growth. The critical question was the cause of the currency depreciation. We argue here that the rand's decline was the result of a concatenation of internal and external factors, specifically the way the operations of the global financial markets magnified and exacerbated the effects of internal financial policy decisions. The article illustrates the heightening connectivity between domestic policy decisions aimed at regulating the national economy and the globalizing financial markets that operate on an altogether different logic. The Reserve Bank's attempt to regulate the local foreign exchange regime in concert with the corporate use of financial instruments to circumvent these exchange controls led to a relatively illiquid currency market that was easily susceptible to attack by speculative capital. The end result was a crippling devaluation that especially hurt the impoverished black South African majority in the process of getting on its feet economically, thereby adding a further constraint on the consolidation of post-apartheid democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]