New Data, New Approaches and New Evidence: A Policy Synthesis

• Author: Channing Arndt
• Date: 01 January 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/saje.12184
• Published date: 01 January 2018

NEW DATA, NEW APPROACHES AND NEW EVIDENCE:

A POLICY SYNTHESIS

CHANNING ARNDT

Abstract

The Republic of South Africa faces the imperative of escaping economic stagnation. This article

seeks to synthesise results from a series of research efforts, including but not limited to the articles

presented in this special issue, and consider policy options for escaping economic stagnation. The

focus is on South Africa and South African policies yielding relatively quick dividends in terms

of growth and taking the rest of the world as given. Four broad implications are presented. These

could form part of a concerted effort to escape from South Africa’s long running economic

malaise.

JEL Classif‌ication: O11, D24, F16, F22

Keywords: South Africa, growth, productivity, wage premium, trade

1. INTRODUCTION

The Republic of South Africa faces the imperative of escaping economic stagnation. The

broad level economic ills besetting South Africa are well known but bear brief repetition:

real GDP per capita has hardly grown for nine years; productivity growth has been slow

and appears to be slowing; the unemployment rate has recently been increasing from

already extraordinarily high levels; and inequality remains stubbornly very high.

This article draws from a series of efforts designed principally to provide insights into

the nature of the ills besetting the South African economy and consider policy options

for escaping economic stagnation. It is a synthesis drawing upon the articles presented in

this special issue as well as other research. The focus is on South Africa and South

African policies largely taking the rest of the world as given.

1

The article is structured as

follows. Section 2 brief‌ly presents the new data and approaches that have helped to bring

new information to bear. Section 3 describes salient results and seeks to link disparate

research f‌indings into a more coherent narrative. Finally, section 4 sets forth four broad

implications of the narrative developed in section 3.

2. NEW DATA AND NEW APPROACHES

Over the past 5 years, considerable efforts have been made to make available new data,

which in turn permit new approaches. Three data efforts are in focus here. First, the

Economic Policy Division within the National Treasury (NT-EP) has collaborated with

* Corresponding author: Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI/DSG, 2033 K St. NW, Washington,

DC, USA. Tel: 11 202 862 8103. E-mail: c.arndt@cgiar.org

1

An assessment of the Southern Africa region, and the fundamentally collaborative policies that

are required to realize the full scope of regional development potentials, can be found in Arndt and

Roberts (2017).

V

C2018 UNU-WIDER. South African Journal of Economics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of

Economics Society of South Africa.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which

permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not

used for commercial purposes. doi: 10.1111/saje.12184

167

South African Journal of Economics Vol. 86:S1 January 2018

South African Journal

of Economics