Capital Accumulation and Macro Policy in South Africa: Political Instability, Distributive Conflict, and Economic Institutions, 2002

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Heintz
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Political Instability ◽  
Economic Institutions ◽  
Distributive Conflict

Economic Growth and Political Change: the South African Case

1981 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 667-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanley B. Greenberg
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Capital Requirements ◽  
Social Position ◽  
Class Formation ◽  
Living Standard ◽  
Business Enterprise ◽  
Racial Lines

People of quite diverse social position and perspective have turned to economic growth as a source of political change in South Africa. Contained within the concept of growth, they maintain, are processes — capital accumulation and class formation, business enterprise and markets, changing skill and capital requirements – that, at the very least, allow some blacks a more secure and higher living standard, that may bring greater equality between the races, or more profoundly, confound traditional racial lines and privileges of quite diverse social position and perspective have turned to economic growth as a source of political change in South Africa. Contained within the concept of growth, they maintain, are processes — capital accumulation and class formation, business enterprise and markets, changing skill and capital requirements – that, at the very least, allow some blacks a more secure and higher living standard, that may bring greater equality between the races, or more profoundly, confound traditional racial lines and privileges. Indeed, some argue that growth undermines the foundations of the racial state. Many of those who posit a relationship between economics and politics, take the next logical step: supporting actions, including foreign investment, that foster economic growth and, presumably, political change in South Africa.

The Bantustans and capital accumulation in South Africa

1976 ◽  
Vol 3 (7) ◽  
pp. 87-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Legassick ◽  
Harold Wolpe
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Capital Accumulation

scholarly journals Growth, Water Resilience, and Sustainability: A DSGE Model Applied to South Africa

2016 ◽  
Vol 02 (04) ◽  
pp. 1650022
Author(s):  
Chuan-Zhong Li ◽  
Ranjula Bali Swain
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Poor Country ◽  
Change Scenario ◽  
Limiting Factor ◽  
Precipitation Pattern ◽  
Dsge Model ◽  
Stochastic Variation ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Dynamic Stochastic

In this paper, we develop a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model to study how water resilience affects economic growth and dynamic welfare with special reference to South Africa. While water may become a limiting factor for future development in general, as a drought prone and water poor country with rapid population growth, South Africa may face more serious challenges for sustainable development. Analyzing the DSGE model, we conduct numerical simulations for different parameter configurations with varying discount rate, climate change scenario, and the degree of uncertainty in future precipitation. We find that with sufficient capital accumulation, development may still be sustainable despite increased future water scarcity and decreased long-run sustainable welfare. While stochastic variation in precipitation has a negative effect on water resilience and the expected dynamic welfare, the effect is mitigated by persistence in the precipitation pattern. With heavier time discounting and lower capital formation, however, the current welfare may not be sustained.

Financial subordination and uneven financialization in 21st century Africa

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven ◽  
Kai Koddenbrock ◽  
Ndongo Samba Sylla
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Empirical Analysis ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
World Market ◽  
African Continent ◽  
Bretton Woods ◽  
Capitalist World ◽  
The Empirical Analysis

Abstract The financialization debate has not paid enough attention to the African continent. The continent’s populations and governments have found creative ways of dealing with the capitalist world market and political power relations since decolonization in the late 1950s. However, several forms of structural dependence and subordination persist. We ask in this article how the global process of financialization has unfolded across the continent and what it means for relations of dependence. We understand financialization as the global expansion of financial practices, and, in particular, the financial sector, that followed the end of the Bretton Woods era. We consider to what extent it has occurred at all in the four case study countries of Mauritius, Nigeria, Zambia, and South Africa. The empirical analysis of aggregate country data shows that financialization is, at best, an uneven and patchy process on the continent, not a general structural shift in the way capital accumulation is organized. Rather, where financialization occurred, it appears to have diversified the relations of dependence that states, corporations, and populations have found themselves in.

scholarly journals Bank Credit And Agricultural Output In South Africa: A Cobb-Douglas Empirical Analysis

2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Chisasa ◽  
Daniel Makina
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Production Function ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Time Series Data ◽  
Bank Credit ◽  
Series Data ◽  
Agricultural Output ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Constant Returns To Scale ◽  
Douglas Production Function

We empirically examine the impact of bank credit on agricultural output in South Africa using the Cobb-Douglas production function. We utilize time series data of agricultural output, bank credit, capital accumulation, labour and rainfall from 1970 2009. With agricultural output as the dependent variable, we determine OLS estimates of the Cobb-Douglas production function. We observe that bank credit has a positive and significant impact on agricultural output in South Africa. With other factors of production kept constant, a 1% increase in credit results in 0.6% increase in agricultural output. Capital accumulation is also observed to have a positive and significant impact on agricultural output, albeit lower than that of credit, as a 1% increase in capital accumulation results in 0.4% increase in output, other factors kept constant. In terms the Cobb-Douglas elasticities, the combined effect of credit (0.6%) and capital accumulation (0.4%) gives constant returns to scale, meaning that doubling the two inputs will double agricultural output.

scholarly journals The role of stokvels in South Africa: a case of economic transformation of a municipality

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 26-37
Author(s):  
Mduduzi J.K. Bophela ◽  
Njabulo Khumalo
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Informal Economy ◽  
Policy Development ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Sampling Method ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
Policy Framework ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Probability Sampling ◽  
Economic Contribution

Stokvel is a type of ‘rotating savings and credit associations’ found only in South Africa (SA) which have an estimated value of R49 billion and a membership of 11,5 million, in a country with a populace of 57million and an informal economy with a total value of R160 billion – yet remain a hidden sector of the economy. This confirms that there is a shortage of the consulted literature on the model for integrating the stokvels into the economic policy framework of a municipality. Therefore, developing the stokvel industry could be key to poverty alleviation, reduction of unemployment and broadening equitable access to the ownership of the economy and capital accumulation; thus, improving the livelihoods and raising the standard of living. The objective of the paper is to determine the economic contribution factors of stokvels in the economic transformation of SA at a municipality level. The paper used a mixed methods design. A sample size of 395 stokvel groups’ respondents for the quantitative research was selected using a simple random probability sampling method. The response rate was 100 percent. For the qualitative part, six policy-makers were interviewed using the purposive non-probability sampling method. The paper revealed that the money saving and investment, business opportunities and job creation, and policy development were the main economic contribution factors of stokvels in SA at the municipalities. The paper recommended for policy-makers to formulate an economic transformation policy framework inclusive of stokvels and to adopt their economic contribution factors.

All dried up: An interdisciplinary analysis of drought risk in Ladismith, South Africa  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa Savelli ◽  
Maria Rusca ◽  
Hannah Cloke ◽  
Giuliano Di Baldassarre
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Political Ecology ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Ecological Impacts ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Drought Risk ◽  
Adaptation Measures ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Hydro Climatology

<p>Droughts have always been part of Earth climate, yet today these phenomena are becoming more alarming due to their increasing severity and their disastrous socio-ecological impacts. Different scientific definitions or diverse understanding of drought risk have been proposed also because of the simultaneously social and ecological complexity which characterizes droughts relative to other hazards and/or vulnerabilities. This work sets out to confront the distinctive complexity of drought risk throughout a novel approach which combines political ecology perspectives with hydro-climatological insights. Our engagement with political ecologies of land, water, and vulnerability helps to explain the socio-political processes that intersect with the production of droughts and their consequences. Concurrently, hydro-climatology unravels the physical or material processes that both constitute and transform drought phenomena into socio-ecological disasters. The drought-stricken Ladismith in Western Cape, South Africa, is the point of departure of our empirical analysis which portrays the socio-ecological disruption reached by this rural community after five years of below-average rainfall (meteorological drought). We show that Ladismith socio-ecological crisis was mostly engendered by a distinct mechanism of capital accumulation through land and water dispossession, which emerged locally in the form of white commercial agriculture. Our interdisciplinary approach examines these socio-political processes in relation to the drought physical transformations over time and across space. By relating societal and physical processes we advance a novel understanding of drought that sheds light on the crucial interactions between social power, climate, land use, and hydrology, which all too often transform a meteorological event into a soil moisture drought, a hydrological drought, and eventually into a major socio-ecological crisis. Secondly, combining hydro-climatology with political ecology reveals that social power not only influences the vulnerability of the systems affected by droughts, but also shapes the occurrence and manifestation of the hazard itself. This novel conceptualization of drought risk as socially produced is key to intercept the material spaces and physical dynamics through which social power plays out in more extreme and disruptive drought events. A similar approach, by identifying unjust and unsustainable socio-ecological changes, can make drought management policies and strategies more proactive rather than constrain them to relief or adaptation measures.</p>

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