VOLUME / UITGAWE 67
No. 3, September 1999
Nr. 3, September 1999
ABSTRACTS OF ARTICLES /
SAMEVATTING VAN ARTIKELS
Volume 67, No. 3, September 1999
Uitgawe 67, Nr. 3, September
1999
A DUAL
ECONOMY PERSPECTIVE ON
INTER-INDUSTRY WAGE DIFFERENTIALS
MINETTE R SMIT
This paper uses insights from the
industrial economics fields to illustrate how segmented labour market theory can be
extended and restructured into an integrated dual economy framework. This framework
is then used to extend the traditional labour economic textbook analysis of inter-industry
wage differentials. The integration of the assumptions of two parallel literatures
on segmentation into one framework offers a new and broader way of looking at the basic
mechanisms underlying the operations of the labour market.
DECOMPOSING
SHIFTS IN LABOUR DEMAND
IN SOUTH AFRICA
H. BHORAT and D. HODGE
Labour demand patterns in South
Africa are analysed over the period 1970 to 1995. The approach is to assume that
labour demand shifts are in part of two factors, namely production method changes and
structural change. Utilising a basic state decomposition technique, this paper
determines the differing contribution of each of these variables in explaining shifts in
labour demand in South Africa. The results show that the composite effect of these
two variables, has been to lower the demand for workers at the bottom-end of the
occupational ladder and increase the demand for more skilled employees. The racial
manifestation of this is that groups that have benefited the least from these shifts in
labour demand have been African and Coloured workers.
SOUTH
AFRICAN EDUCATION: A PRINCIPAL-AGENT PROBLEM
A.P. DE VILLIERS
Increased funding for the South
African education system over (especially) the last three decades has not led to an
improvement in passrates of the education system. The desperate shortage of funds
for social services requires an urgent improvement in the efficiency of the education
system. One of the problems leading to this unsatisfactory situation is the presence
of the principal-agent problem in the present education system. Solving the
principal-agent problem can do much to rectify the situation.
EDUCATION
CERTIFICATION AND EARNINGS:
EVIDENCE FROM BOTSWANA
H.K. SIPHAMHE
Using data from a 1993/94 Household
Survey and survey data conducted by the author in 1996, this paper presents results of
testing for the screening hypothesis in Botswana's labour market. The results
obtained support the screening hypothesis in both the Private and Public Sectors of
Botswana's Economy. The major policy implication of the study is that the promotion
and wage system needs to emphasise the link between performance on the job and earnings
and put less emphasis on earnings and education link, except perhaps at the initial hiring
stage. Secondly employment creation has to be pursued more vigorously.
LINKAGE
BANKING FOR MICRO-ENTEPRISES
IN SOUTH AFRICA
A. SCHOOMBEE
Linkage banking, where banks link
with the informal or semi-formal financial sectors to enhance the accessibility of deposit
and credit facilities for micro-enterprises, is found only to a limited extent in South
Africa. Three factors explain this. First, the lack of financially sustainable
credit-granting non-government organisation, the semi-formal financial intermediaries
involved in linking. Second, certain problems identified in urban stokvels, the
rotating savings and credit association operating in the informal financial sector and the
natural linkage partners of the banks. This, the unwillingness of banks to charge
cost-covering rates of interest on loans up to R6 000 (US$1 000), the amounts banks may
lend without being subject to the usury rate legislation.
A CGE MODEL
FOR ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY EVALUATION
IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN MINING INDUSTRY
R. THIELE
This paper presents a Computable
General Equilibrium (CGE) model for the analysis of environmental policies towards mining
activities, and shows for the case of South Africa how it can be implemented numerically.
The CGE model belongs to the class of static, trade-focused models along the lines
suggested by Dervis et al (1982). A distinctive feature of the model is
that it allows for substitution possibilities between primary factors and intermediate
inputs such as energy and mineral resources. In the South African data base, two
different types of household (black and other household) are distinguished in order to
trace the distributional consequences of policy reforms which are of high priority given
the income inequalities prevailing in South Africa. |
