SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS最新文献

A computable general equilibrium model linked to a microsimulation model is applied to assess the potential short-term effects on the South African economy of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. With a particular focus on distributional outcomes, two simulations are run, a mild and a severe scenario. The findings show significant evidence of decline in economic growth and employment, with the decline harsher for the severe scenario. The microeconomic results show that the pandemic moves the income distribution curve such that more households fall under the poverty line while at the same time, inequality declines. The latter result is driven by the disproportionate decline in incomes of richer households while the poorest of the poor are cushioned by government social grants that are kept intact during the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic is still unfolding and its economic modelling as well as the data used to operationalise the model will need to be updated and improved upon as more information about the disease and the economy becomes available.

The declaration of a state of national disaster in South Africa, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, was followed by excessive-pricing regulations pertaining to certain consumer and medical products and services. The regulations and their application suggest an intertemporal benchmark to judge excessive pricing, deviating from previous practice. Intertemporal comparisons assume a structural shift during COVID-19 that changes competitive conditions, related to changes in consumer behaviour. Such comparisons must also account for demand and cost changes. While the COVID-19 regulations allow for cost-based price increases, demand-based increases are not explicitly accounted for, suggesting that the regulations are framed more generally as price-gouging regulations. The differences between price-gouging and excessive-pricing benchmarks depends on the type of disaster-period demand shock. They are similar following a transitory demand spike, provided sufficient time is allowed for dynamic price behaviour, but differ markedly when demand is elevated for the duration of the disaster period. Applying simple cost-based comparisons in recently concluded cases against smaller retailers are consistent with excessive pricing, given the presence of a demand spike. To the extent that these involve persistently higher demand, cases against wholesalers and larger retailers will be more complicated, as such demand must be reflected in competitive prices.

This paper conducts an analysis of labour market dynamics in South Africa during the initial period of lockdown, from the end of March to the end of April 2020, using the first wave of the NIDS-CRAM (2020) survey. Within our sample of over 6,000 adults aged 18 to 59, we found that there was a very large decrease in employment. The fraction of the sample that was conventionally classified as employed decreased from 57% in February to 48% in April. If we further exclude temporarily absent workers, which we term "furloughed" employees, this fraction decreases further to 38%. Thus, about one out of every three employed people in our sample either lost their job or did not work and received no wages during April. This has extremely large implications for poverty and welfare. We further analyse the labour market by comparing across demographic groups as defined by race, by gender, by age groups, by geographic areas and by education levels. The over-arching finding from this analysis is that the job losses were not uniformly distributed amongst the different groups. In particular, groups who have always been more vulnerable - such as women, African/Blacks, youth and less educated groups - have been disproportionately negatively affected.