Suchergebnisse

The main objective of this article is to reexamine the role of the Phillips curve for monetary policy analysis in South Africa by augmenting the model for major structural changes in the balance‐of‐payments and labor market. The main findings show that a linear Phillips curve with an output gap in levels accurately describes South Africa's nontrended inflation experience during 1971(Q1)–1984(Q4), whereas a piecewise concave curve with an output gap in growth rates correctly predicts the decelerating inflation pattern during 1986(Q1)–2001(Q2). The concave curve after 1985 imparts a deflationary bias that requires expansionary demand‐side policies to stabilise the inflation rate. An important corollary is that expansionary demand‐side policies can raise the average growth rate of the output gap over time without sacrificing stabilization objectives. (JELC22, E3, E52)

The main purpose of this paper is to describe South Africa's money supply process along several competing, but not mutually exclusive, theoretical paradigms over the period 1966-1997. The most important conclusion to be drawn from the empirical results is that irrespective of the monetary system at the time, the money supply process in South Africa is endogenously determined. The empirical analysis further shows that the inability of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) to reach predetermined M3 monetary growth targets on a consistent basis since the mid 1980s is the direct result of an endogenous money supply and not, as a previous study claims, because of an unstable M3 velocity. Although the M3 velocity is stable over the whole period 1966-1997, money income determined an endogenous money supply, so that the M3 money supply lost its effectiveness as a leading indicator for monetary policy. The policy implication is that the SARB controlled the M3 money supply indirectly over the period 1980-1997, through an increase in interest rates, and at the potential cost of a slowdown in economic activity.

The purpose of this paper is to explain differences in the productivity of capital across countries taking 84 rich and poor countries over the period 1980-2011, and to test the orthodox neoclassical assumption of diminishing returns to capital. The marginal product of capital is measured as the ratio of the long-run growth of GDP to a country's investment ratio. Twenty potential determinants are considered using a general-to-specific model selection procedure. Education, government consumption, geography, export growth, openness, political rights and macroeconomic instability turn out to be the most important variables. The data also suggest constant returns to capital, so investment matters for long-run growth.