Explore the vast range of titles available.

Little is known about the general equilibrium impact COVID-19 induces on different gender groups. This paper addresses the problem of relatively few general equilibrium studies focusing on gender impacts of COVID-19. The analysis uses a gendered Computable General Equilibrium model linked to a microsimulation model that analyses a mild and severe scenario of the pandemic on economic and distributional outcomes for females. Irrespective of scenario, findings show that because women employment tend to have unskilled labour which is more concentrated in sectors that are hurt the most by COVID-19 response measures, they suffer disproportionately more from higher unemployment than their male counterparts. The poverty outcomes show worsened vulnerability for female-headed households given that, even prior to the pandemic, poverty was already higher amongst women. These simulated results are consistent with recently observed impacts and address research gaps important for well-designed public policies to reverse these trends.

Since 1994, the democratic government in South Africa has worked hard at improving the lives of the black majority, yet close to half the population lives in poverty, jobs are scarce, and the country is more unequal than ever. For millions, the colour of people's skin still decides their destiny. In his wide-ranging, incisive and provocative analysis, Hein Marais shows that although the legacies of apartheid and colonialism weigh heavy, many of the strategic choices made since the early 1990s have compounded those handicaps. Marais explains why those choices were made, where they went awry, and why South Africa's vaunted formations of the left -- old and new -- have failed to prevent or alter them. From the real reasons behind President Jacob Zuma's rise and the purging of his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, to a devastating critique of the country's continuing AIDS crisis, its economic path and its approach to the rights and entitlements of citizens, South Africa Pushed to the Limit presents a riveting benchmark analysis of the incomplete journey beyond apartheid.

Abstract Climate-generated stress has been linked to multiple socio-political outcomes, many of which are violent. Scarcity is a key mechanism behind these violent outcomes. I argue that climate-induced scarcity creates conditions for organized criminal groups to capture the markets of legal commodities. Scarcity drives prices up, creating incentives for criminal groups to capture the production and distribution of these commodities with pernicious consequences. Using qualitative evidence for the abalone shellfish market in two South African provinces, I trace the process connecting climate-induced scarcity to price changes, to criminal market capture. In doing so, I make three contributions: I propose a new theory about the climate drivers behind the behavior of organized crime by bringing together scholarship on climate and conflict and criminal violence; I extend research on organized crime from markets of illicit goods into markets for licit ones; and I provide evidence suggestive of brokerage as a specific mechanism to illegally control a market.

The distribution of incomes in South Africa in 2004, ten years after the transition to democracy, was probably more unequal than it had been under apartheid. In this book, Jeremy Seekings and Nicoli Nattrass explain why this is so, offering a detailed and comprehensive analysis of inequality in South Africa from the midtwentieth century to the early twenty-first century. They show that the basis of inequality shifted in the last decades of the twentieth century from race to class. Formal deracialization of public policy did not reduce the actual disadvantages experienced by the poor nor the advantages of the rich. The fundamental continuity in patterns of advantage and disadvantage resulted from underlying continuities in public policy, or what Seekings and Nattrass call the \"distributional regime.\" The post-apartheid distributional regime continues to divide South Africans into insiders and outsiders. The insiders, now increasingly multiracial, enjoy good access to well-paid, skilled jobs; the outsiders lack skills and employment.

Purpose As women increasingly take on leadership roles during these turbulent times, the differences in their leadership styles in comparison to males in similar positions will continue to attract attention as it has in the past. The aim of this paper is to explore appropriate leadership styles that women in senior leadership positions facing the glass cliff have at their disposal. Design/methodology/approach This research method was qualitative. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews from a total of 17 participants in corporate South Africa; purposive and snowball sampling was used to select women in senior leadership positions. Findings Participants expressed overwhelming support for a transformational leadership style due to its characteristics; however, women leaders believe a style or combination of styles are used based on the situation at hand. Research limitations/implications Using only qualitative research has limited the scope and applicability of this study significantly. Practical implications The representation of women in senior leadership positions has increased over the years more especially in organisations where there is crisis, attention now is the difference in kind of leadership styles they use. Originality/value Very few research studies have gone in-depth into the effectiveness of the leadership styles that were used by women in corporate South Africa. The study, therefore, presents a major implication indicating that to show positive results, women need to be able to identify an appropriate leadership style based on carefully reviewing their specific organisational situation.

In this study we investigate in how far firms in special economic zones (SEZs) have the potential to generate indirect benefits and knowledge spill-overs in the local economy through the creation of backward linkages with local suppliers. For this purpose, we map the linkages between SEZ firms and suppliers in the host economy in seven SEZs around the world, namely in Colombia, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa and Vietnam, based on 103 interviews with SEZ firm managers. We furthermore analyse the challenges in the formation of these linkages. Overall, our findings suggest that, contrary to the objective of many of the zones, backward linkages between firms within SEZs as well as with firms outside the SEZs remain rather limited for the SEZs analysed. Firms primarily purchase services and minor inputs, such as packaging materials, from within or outside the SEZ. The sourcing of key inputs, however, is a major challenge due to a lack of local availability, high local prices and quality concerns. The majority of SEZ firms imports large parts of their inputs from abroad. This is true across a variety of sectors analysed, including garment, high-tech industries and services.

Existing accounts of centralized candidate selection argue that party elites tend to ignore constituent preferences in favor of internal party concerns, leading to accountability deficits. Yet this claim has been largely assumed rather than demonstrated. We provide the first detailed empirical analysis of the relationship between constituent opinion and candidate nominations in the absence of party primaries. We study contemporary South Africa, where conventional wisdom suggests that parties select candidates primarily on the basis of party loyalty. Analyzing more than 8000 local government councillor careers linked with public opinion data, we find that citizen approval predicts incumbent renomination and promotion in minimally competitive constituencies, and that this relationship becomes more pronounced with increasing levels of competition. By contrast, improvements in service provision do not predict career advancement. Under threat of electoral losses, South Africa’s centralized parties strategically remove unpopular incumbents to demonstrate responsiveness to constituent views. However, party-led accountability may not improve development.

Results on the connection between financial development and CO2 emissions are presented in contradicting ways in earlier research. In order to solve this conundrum, the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) framework is used in this study to examine both the direct and indirect effects of financial development on environmental degradation. Our empirical analysis is supported by the cutting-edge dynamic ARDL simulations framework for the 1960–2020 time span in South Africa. The estimated results, which are based on five separate financial development indices, corroborate South Africa's claim that the country's financial development prevents pollution. For South Africa, we also confirm the validity of the EKC theory. The results of the indirect channels demonstrate that financial development also lessens the negative impacts of income, energy usage, trade openness, and foreign direct investment (FDI) on pollution emissions. A weak financial structure is also necessary for the viability of the polluted haven hypothesis (PHH), which is examined using trade openness and FDI variables. For each of these variables, PHH vanishes at a particular point in financial development. Last but not least, increased industrial value-added increases pollution emissions, whereas increased technical innovation decreases the former. On the basis of these findings, South Africa should offer financial incentives and tax breaks to attract green FDI and encourage investments that prioritize environmental sustainability. These incentives can include grants, subsidies, and preferential tax rates for FDI projects that align with South Africa's environmental goals. Providing a favourable investment climate for green projects can stimulate sustainable economic growth and attract responsible investors.

This paper analyses how the reconfiguration of power relationships in high-value fresh fruit value chains impacts on upgrading for export performance. The citrus industry in South Africa stands out internationally for its strong export growth and productive capabilities in which collective action by the Citrus Growers Association has played an important role. South Africa is the second largest citrus exporter in the world, after Spain. The industry’s export success has been built on investments and coordination to support shared capabilities and upgrading. The performance relates to improvements from inputs, through to growing, packing and marketing. We find that the upgrading is associated with the relatively powerful position of citrus growers, due to the way they organised themselves through the industry association and their engagement with the state. This has simultaneously supported value creation and inclusion. Through the case study of South Africa’s citrus industry, we demonstrate the potential for growers to organise themselves to reconfigure power relations in the value chain.

The aim of this article is to investigate the relationship between the exposition of emerging countries to original sin and the internationalization process of their currency in a nonlinear framework. For that purpose, we use a panel dataset of 12 emerging countries from 2005Q4 to 2018Q3, and we implement two complementary methodologies: a multiplicative interaction model and a dynamic panel threshold model. We investigate the impact of the measures of the currency internationalization process on the ability of emerging countries to issue debt in local currency. We show that the Economic size and the institutional quality of emerging countries, as well as the FX turnover of their currency, interact when explaining the share of local-currency external debt. Moreover, our results reveal the existence of thresholds beyond which there is a change in the evolution of original sin, notably for the economic size and the governance index of emerging countries.