Browsing by Author "Hodge, James"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    Botswana's commodity concentration and export earnings
    (2003) Ndzinge, Victoria; Hodge, James
    Commodity concentration has been regarded as a major factor contributing to short-term instability in export earnings experienced by developing countries. This paper investigates the degree of export instability in Botswana's exports. It also considers whether commodity concentration is a source of instability in Botswana's export earnings. Findings found that Botswana's export instability is relatively high compared to other countries. In addition commodity concentration was found not to be the main source of instability in export earnings for the case of Botswana.
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    The Impact of Privatisation and Regulatory Reform on Wage Premia in State-Owned Enterprises in South Africa
    (2003-07) Hattingh, Damian; Hodge, James; Rospabe, Sandrine
    Whilst much has been said about the employment effects of the privatisation of state-owned enterprises in South Africa, the debate has largely overlooked the impact of these events on the wage levels of those workers that retain their jobs in the restructuring process. This paper estimates earnings functions for workers in the South African economy to determine the impact of these changes.
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    An Overview of the Role of Producer Services in the Petrochemicals Industry in South Africa: A Case Study of Sasol
    (2000-02) Hodge, James
    The petrochemicals industry in South Africa has grown significantly over the past two decades, largely as a result of the expansion and diversification of the premier petrochemical producer - Sasol. This working paper examines the role that producer services have played in this growth.
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    The relationship between firm size and exports in the context of merger review in South Africa : is the international competitiveness public interest clause of the Competition Act valid
    (2005) Aproskie, Jason; Hodge, James
    According to the Competition Act of South Africa, proposed mergers, if rejected on the grounds of anti-competitive effects as well as the efficiency considerations, may be passed on certain public interest grounds. The fourth public interest clause potentially allows mergers to be passed should the merged firm become more able to compete in international markets. This paper interprets the clause to refer to a relationship between firm size and exports, and investigates this supposed relationship and, in so doing, the validity of the clause. It is found that firm size is positively related to export propensity, the likelihood of exporting any output. However, firm size is found to be unrelated to the intensity of exporting, the proportion of output that is exported by the firm. This paper covers new areas of research, and its conclusions call into question the inclusion of the relevant public interest clause in the Competition Act.
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    The South African government, the pharmaceutical companies and access to HIV
    (2001) Cleary, Susan; Hodge, James; Ross, Don
    Bibliography: leaves 67-82.
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    Understanding the high tech sector in the Cape Metropolitan Region: a contribution to the development of a regional strategy for high tech industry
    (2000-03) Hodge, James; Driver, Amanda
    The aim of this working paper is to contribute to a strategy for developing the high tech sector in the Cape Metropolitan Region (CMR) through a better understanding of the high tech firms that already exist.
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    Understanding world and South African trade in services
    (1997) Hodge, James; Hartzenberg, Trudi
    Services trade has become a significant component of world trade and has been given more academic profile since its inclusion in the Uruguay Round of GATT trade talks. However, the paucity of academic work means that services trade is still poorly understood and lacks significant statistical analysis. This research begins by analysing the characteristics of different service types using South African output, capital, employment and wage data. This demonstrates that consumer services tend to be labour-intensive while producer and community/social services tend to be capital- and skill- intensive. Then IMF balance of payments data and World Bank output data for all world regions is used to calculate the cause of growth in services trade, the product structure of traded services and the export and import performance of countries from different regions and development stages. It is found that producer services account for almost 2/3's of traded services followed by consumer services with around 30%. Industrial countries dominate services trade to a far greater extent than goods trade yet this dominance is diminishing due to the growing share of the Asian developing economies. Further analysis of service trade patterns finds that although traditional trade theory and its extensions account for much of what is observed, it needs to be augmented by the strong influences of geographical proximity, policy distortions and the level of other trade and investment that a country engages in. A mix of IMF and SARB data is used to construct a service trade data set for South Africa which complies with the new IMF BPM5 definitions. This data reveals the poor performance of South African service exports which have been stunted to a large degree by sanctions and geographic isolation from the large growth regions of the world. A closer inspection of the product mix reveals that exports are dominated by the labour-intensive travel sector with particularly poor performance within the business services sector. Imports are dominated by the capital-intensive transportation sector. A regional breakdown of trade reveals the dominance of trade with the African and European regions - signs of the importance of regional proximity and trade and investment links in services trade.