South Africa has undergone a remarkable transformation since its democratic transition in 1994, but economic growth and employment generation have been disappointing. Most worryingly, unemployment is currently among the highest in the world. While the proximate cause of high unemployment is that prevailing wages levels are too high, the deeper cause lies elsewhere, and is intimately connected to the inability of the South African to generate much growth momentum in the past decade. High unemployment and low growth are both ultimately the result of the shrinkage of the non-mineral tradable sector since the early 1990s. The weakness in particular of export-oriented manufacturing has deprived South Africa from growth opportunities as well as from job creation at the relatively low end of the skill distribution. Econometric analysis identifies the decline in the relative profitability of manufacturing in the 1990s as the most important contributor to the lack of vitality in that sector.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
12565.
Length: Date of creation: Oct 2006 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12565
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Find related papers by JEL classification: O11 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development O14 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
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Hausmann, Ricardo & Hwang, Jason & Rodrik, Dani, 2006.
"What You Export Matters,"
CEPR Discussion Papers
5444, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
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Ricardo Hausmann & Jason Hwang & Dani Rodrik, 2005.
"What You Export Matters,"
NBER Working Papers
11905, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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Hausmann, Ricardo & Hwang, Jason & Rodrik, Dani, 2005.
"What You Export Matters,"
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rwp05-063, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
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