Policy Brief – Competition and Productivity Growth in South Africa

CID Working Paper No. 132 :: Competition and Productivity Growth in South Africa by Philippe Aghion, Matias Braun, and Johannes Fedderke, Center for International Development at Harvard University

Using three different panel data sets, the authors show: (i) that mark-ups are significantly higher in South African manufacturing industries than they are in corresponding industries worldwide; (ii) that competition policy (i.e. a reduction of markups) should have largely positive effects on productivity growth and employment in South Africa.

Competition and Productivity Growth in South Africa

Investigating Agricultural Productivity Growth and Convergence in Iran and Eastern African Countries

The issue of convergence or divergence of productivity has important policy for regional poverty reduction and increasing standards of living. If productivity converges to a common level without intervention, there is little need for explicit policies in lagging regions to promote catch up. On the other hand, productivity has divergence trend, then explicit policies would be needed to prevent f...

Research Productivity and Economic Growth: A Policy Lesson Learnt from Across the Globe

The relationship between research productivity and economic growth is the subject of information science which deals in this study to examine the impact of number of publications, research & development (R&D) expenditures and researchers involved in R&D activities on economic growth in the World’s largest regions for the period of 1980–2011. The study further expanded the research-growth nexus ...

The Rationale for Competition Policy: a South African Perspective

When South Africa made the political transition to a democracy in 1994, the new government inherited an economy characterized by racial inequality, an uncompetitive manufacturing sector and high concentration levels. Within the setting of the democracy, these problems have to be addressed urgently to ensure that all South Africans have equal opportunities to participate in the formal economy. T...