Ramos Mabugu

Case Study: A Gender-focused Macro-Micro Analysis of the Poverty Impacts of Trade Liberalization in South Africa

This case study examines the impacts on poverty and equality of the extended trade liberalisation strategy that South Africa has been following since 1994. The paper features an integrated CGE microsimulation model with explicit incorporation of non-market activities and gender decomposition. This makes it possible to assess the effects of trade liberalization on between and within-group poverty, as well as on gender-disaggregated household production and leisure. The findings reveal that trade liberalization is strongly gender biased against women.

Short-Term Effects of Policy Reform on Tourism and the Macroeconomy in Zimbabwe: Applied CGE Analysis

This article applies a short-term computable general equilibrium model for Zimbabwe to trace the direct and indirect effects of policy on the macroeconomy and tourism. The results show that the main reason why benefits from tourism are bypassing the country is because of poorly sequenced macroeconomic policies and a negative political climate. As and when the national political situation stabilises and the economy begins to grow again, an urgent macroeconomic thrust should be to implement a credible macroeconomic stabilisation programme, consisting in the main of reduced fiscal deficits, flexible foreign exchange markets and tight monetary policies to rein in inflation. However, because Zimbabwe is in arrears, there can be no programmes or lending with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Getting the budget in order without aid money will be very tough indeed, and the alternative is worse. It means debt deflation by means of hyperinflation.

The poverty implications of high oil prices in South Africa

An energy-focused macro-micro approach is used to assess the poverty implications of government policy response to increases in international oil prices in South Africa. The first scenario assumes that increases in international oil prices are passed on to end users with no changes in government policy instruments. In this scenario, poverty indicators increase. The second scenario assumes that the world price increases are nullified by a price subsidy by the government. This scenario still leads to an increase in poverty as the beneficial price effect is cancelled out by a decline in households’ income induced by the financing method used. While revenue generated from a 50 per cent tax on windfall profit of the petroleum industry helps to minimize the loss in government revenue, it does not contribute to mitigating the increasing poverty trend, since the decline in saving and investment under this scenario restricts the countrys growth, employment and income distribution perspectives.

Can trade liberalisation in South Africa reduce poverty and inequality while boosting economic growth? Macro–micro reflections

South Africa is trapped in a cycle of modest growth, unacceptable poverty levels and record unemployment. This has led to renewed interest on the relationship between macro (growth) and micro (poverty and distribution) issues. This paper uses a macro–micro tool that couples a computable general equilibrium model with microsimulation models to examine the impact of further unilateral trade policy reforms on growth, poverty and welfare. Trade liberalisation alone has very minimal short-run macroeconomic consequences while its long-term impacts are positive and magnified by technical factor productivity (TFP) effects. Trade liberalisation has no appreciable impact on poverty in the short run even if we allow for trade-induced TFP increases. In the long run, however, poverty reduces even in the case when we do not allow for TFP increases. Trade liberalisation policy has been found to be progressive despite the low level of tariff protection remaining in South Africa.

Analysing Job Creation Effects of Scaling Up Infrastructure Spending in South Africa

ABSTRACT In a first for South Africa, this article draws on literature on infrastructure productivity to model dynamic economy-wide employment impacts of infrastructure investment funded with different fiscal tools. Using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model, the South African investment plan is modelled, given the infrastructure externality. Alternative fiscal scenarios to finance the policy are modelled in the article. In the long run, unemployment decreases for all types of workers under one of the scenarios. In the short run, only elementary occupation workers benefit from a decrease in unemployment; for the rest, unemployment rises.

The Impact of the International Economic Crisis in South Africa

A dynamic computable general equilibrium model based on the PEP standard model developed by Decaluwe et al. (2009) is used to evaluate the impacts of the international crisis on the South African economy. However, we have changed some assumptions in order to better represent South African specificities. A major innovation in this regard is the modelling of unemployment and the influence of labour unions on the labour market. Two scenarios encompassing a severe and moderate recession are run. The effects of the crisis on the economy are really quite harsh, even in the moderate recession scenario, both in the short run and the long run. Indeed, the decrease of world prices combined with the drop of world demand lead to a decrease in production for many sectors with consequent laying off of workers. The impact on institutions is also worrying: agents see their income as well as their savings decreasing. The huge drop in firms’ savings has a dire impact on total investment while the huge negative impact on government accounts of protracted slow global growth imply tight public budgets for some time to come. Thus, some gains made by the government prior to the crisis may have been reversed by the economic crisis. It is apparent from the results that the impact of the crisis will drag into the long run with the situation still below what it would have been in the absence of a crisis until 2015.

The Economy-Wide Impacts of the South African Child Support Grant: A Micro-Simulation-Computable General Equilibrium Analysis

We examine the economy-wide impact of the child support grant (CSG) on the South African economy using a bottom-up/top-down approach. This allows us to estimate the potential effects on households’ welfare and on the economy following a change in the CSG. Three simulations are presented, in simulation 1 the value of the CSG is increased by 20%; in simulation 2 the number of beneficiaries among the eligible children is increased by two million and simulation 3 combines these two. A positive link between the CSG and the probability of participating in the labour market is found. The positive impacts on the labour market, together with the increase in the transfers received by households, results in an increase in their income. Poverty decreases in comparison with the base year for the whole population and for children. Finally, we can conclude that simulation 1 is the most cost effective of the policies.