Browsing by Author "Standish, Barry"

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    An economic enquiry into the poor White saga
    (Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, 2015-05-28) Abedian, Iraj; Standish, Barry
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    Budget deficits and the term structure of interest rates : evidence from Mauritius (1968-1999)
    (2000) Rangasamy, Krishen; Standish, Barry; Wakeford, Jeremy
    Bibliography: leaves 80-85.
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    Cape Town International Convention Centre: The Projected Economic Distribution
    (2002-08) Standish, Barry
    Towards the end of 2000, a study was commissioned into the projected economic impact of the new Cape Town International Convention Centre. The study set out to measure the macroeconomic impact of the Convention Centre as well as identify industries that could be promoted by the existence of the Centre.
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    Competition Policy and Privatisation in the South African Water Industry
    (2001-03) Conradie, Beatrice; Goldin, Jacqui; Leiman, Anthony; Standish, Barry; Visser, Martine
    The aim of this working paper is to investigate the optimal regulatory routes from a competition and public interest point of view for the South African water industry. The working paper presents the basic conditions of the water sector by outlining the main characteristics of water, providing an historical and international overview of water management in South Africa.
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    Financial liberalisation in Zimbabwe : what went wrong?
    (1999) Maravanyika, Edward; Standish, Barry
    Zimbabwe officially abandoned financial repression when it introduced financial liberalisation in 1991. Since independence in 1980, the government had used interest rate controls and strict foreign exchange regulations in order to control the economy. This mini-dissertation will analyse financial reforms in Zimbabwe from 1991 to 1997. The analysis will consider whether there were statistical grounds to believe that the financial liberalisation hypothesis would work. That is, do real interest rates in Zimbabwe have a statistically significant and positive relationship with real money demand and real savings? This paper will show that in Zimbabwe this relationship does indeed exist. The existence of such a relationship suggests that the freeing of interest rates in 1991 should have raised savings and financial intermediation as the theory predicts. However, as this did not happen, this paper will put forward reasons why, from 1991 to 1997, lifting controls in the economy did not increase savings as expected.
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    The macroeconomic impact of road construction in rural areas of South Africa
    (South African Institution of Civil Engineering, 2004) Standish, Barry; Bothing, Antony
    This paper examines the macroeconomic impact of labour based road construction in rural, underdeveloped areas. The macroeconomic effect is measured by the contribution to gross domestic product (GDP), number of indirect jobs created nationally, contribution to taxes and contribution to indirect household income for each of eleven rural road construction projects. The paper has two objectives. The first is to determine the overall multiplied impact of road construction in rural underdeveloped areas in South Africa. The second is to determine the macroeconomic impact of marginal changes in the use of labour and plant in road construction. Input-output analysis was used to analyse a total of eleven projects. It was found that the GDP multiplier ranged between 1, 34 and 1, 53 with an average of 1, 45. The cost of creating an indirect job ranged from R95 250 to R145 972 with an average cost of R113 835. The effect of substituting labour for plant in the construction methods is examined by means of sensitivity analysis. The sensitivity analysis shows that as the proportion of labour increases relative to plant so the macroeconomic benefits increase and therefore by implication poverty alleviation.
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    Malawi Farm Input Subsidy Programme - impact on income of smallholder farmers
    (2015) Musonzo, Charity Priscilla; Biekpe, Nicholas; Standish, Barry
    Agriculture is the single most important sector in Malawi due to its contribution to the economy ranging from employment creation, contribution to GDP growth to source of foreign exchange earnings. These significant contributions have necessitated the Government of Malawi to develop strategies and policies such as the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP), whose main aim is to increase household incomes and reduce food insecurity and ultimately reduce poverty. It is nine years since the introduction of FISP but its results remain mixed. Using the 2009/10 Integrated Household Survey Phase 3 (IHS3) dataset, a logistic regression in a multivariate data analysis approach was used to investigate the impact of FISP on income levels and food security of rural smallholder farmers in Malawi. The analysis showed that about 82 percent of smallholder farmers live in rural areas, about 75 percent of them were males, 71 percent were married, 70 percent did not go to school and 69 percent benefited from FISP. In farming, 68 percent of these smallholder farmers had less than 1 hectare of farms, 70 percent of them had labour force of less than 5 people, 51 percent of them harvest less than 5 bags of 50kgs of maize of which 92 percent sell most of their harvested maize and 89 percent of them receive less than MK5, 000 from sales. In addition, about 99 percent of these smallholder farmers were food insecure as they save less than 1 bag of 50kgs after harvest. Only 1 percent of these smallholder farmers receive remittances and 21 percent had other income generating activities (IGAs). Demographic and socio-economic factors have no impact on these farmers capability to increase income levels and enhance their food security. There is also no statistically significant difference between FISP beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries in terms of capabilities of increasing incomes and enhancing food security. It is, therefore, concluded that FISP had no significant impact on the abilities of these smallholder farmers to increase their incomes and enhancing their food security. Hence, FISP did not prove to be the best food security and poverty alleviation tool in Malawi.
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    Namibia and the common monetary area : costs, benefits and choices
    (2000) Eita, Joel Hinaunye; Standish, Barry
    This study analyses if the Common Monetary Area 1s an optimum currency area for Namibia. It analyses if Namibia should continue its membership of the Common Monetary Area or whether it should consider alternative exchange rate regimes. The analysis was done in terms of the theory of optimum currency areas. The traditional theory of optimum currency areas points labour mobility, openness, diversification, intensity of mutual trade, financial and goods market integration, wage flexibility and symmetry and asymmetry of shocks as important criteria for optimum currency area. The new theory of optimum criteria points generalised purchasing power parity hypothesis, time inconsistency and the issue of nominal anchor as criteria for optimum currency area. Elimination of transaction costs, savings on foreign exchange reserves, reduction of exchange rate uncertainty are identified as important benefits from using a common currency, while the loss of seigniorage revenue, real exchange rate misalignment, impact of exports on employment are identified as the most visible costs associated with using a common currency. All criteria, benefits and costs were analysed. The results suggest that Namibia should not withdraw from the CMA, but should continue its membership and encourage negotiations for a full monetary union. That is because although the economy of Namibia is not well diversified and there is no labour mobility between Namibia and South Africa, there is a high degree of financial and goods markets integration, high intensity of mutual trade between Namibia and South Africa, and high degree of openness of Namibia's economy. The analysis of purchasing power parity hypothesis shows that the real exchange rates of Namibia and South Africa are cointegrated, and the shocks to the two economies are symmetric suggesting that the two countries require similar policy response. Analysis of the benefits and costs also shows that the benefits are far high than the costs. There are significant gains from the elimination of transaction costs, and savings on foreign exchange reserves. The impact of real exchange misalignment on measures of economic performance as well as the impact of exports on 2 employment is very weak. This weak impact of real exchange rate misalignments on measures of economic performance, and also weak impact of exports on employment as well as the symmetry of shocks of Namibia and South Africa as indicated by the Bayoumi-Eichengreen model suggest that Namibia should continue its membership of the Common Monetary Area. The symmetry of shocks of Namibia and South Africa suggests that the Common Monetary Area is still optimum currency area because these two countries require similar policy response.
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    The sustainability of microfinance institutions in South
    (2014) Lekatsa, Teboho; Standish, Barry
    Microfinance targets the poor and very poor, both in urban and rural areas. It has become a common method of poverty alleviation in many developing countries. Several microfinance institutions have adopted a social mission to eradicate poverty by providing credit to the poor. In the past, microfinance organizations used to focus on farmers in rural areas. Modern microfinance programs are focused on the population that is largely neglected by the formal financial sector, specifically women. Due to the perceived risk in this type of uncollateralized lending, private equity markets are not keen on financing microfinance institutions. Furthermore, microfinance institutions are seen as socially motivated as opposed to being financially motivated. For that reason, their profitability and sustainability has come under question in the last decade. Two approaches to the issue of sustainability exist. The dominant institutionist approach argues that microfinance institutions should focus on being sustainable as this will improve their chances of alleviating poverty. The welfarist approach disagrees with this view by arguing that focusing on sustainability will result in the neglect of the poorest of the poor. This study analyses the sustainability of microfinance in South Africa by using a case study research approach. The study explores the challenges to sustainability in South Africa. The results of the study indicate that the microfinance institutions are not profitable nor self- sufficient. The most notable challenge to this sustainability is the high personnel costs. South African MFIs experience higher operating costs than their African counterparts. The study also indicates that the more financially sound microfinance institutions have a lower level of depth outreach than the more subsidy dependent institutions.