IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/5585.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The impact of export tax incentives on export performance : evidence from the automotive sector in South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Madani , Dorsati H.
  • Mas-Guix, Natalia

Abstract

The original goal of the Motor Industry Development Program was to help the automotive industry in South Africa adjust to trade liberalization and become internationally competitive. In simple terms, it consists of an import/export complementation arrangement, whereby the local value-added of components or built-up vehicles exported earns credits that can be used to rebate import duties on components and vehicles. This study provides a first attempt at a quantitative analysis of the Motor Industry Development Program using the difference-in-difference methodology, in order to assess to what extent the program was effective in improving South Africa's automotive export performance during 1996-2006. The authors take a two-tier approach. First, they perform a comparative study using different manufacturing sectors within South Africa; second, they apply this methodology to analyze South Africa and a number of comparator countries that are automotive producers and exporters. The analysis finds that the impact of the program on automotive exports in South Africa is positive and significant. In particular, (i) the largest response to the program in terms of improved manufacturing exports occurs with a delay after the adoption of the law, suggesting that exports need time to fully react to the incentives; and (ii) in turn, the effectiveness of the tax incentives fades in time, reaffirming the common belief that tax incentives may affect some business decisions particularly in the short run, but they are not a primary consideration for investors in the long run.

Suggested Citation

  • Madani , Dorsati H. & Mas-Guix, Natalia, 2011. "The impact of export tax incentives on export performance : evidence from the automotive sector in South Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5585, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5585
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2011/03/09/000158349_20110309100435/Rendered/PDF/WPS5585.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dani Rodrik, 2008. "Understanding South Africa's economic puzzles," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 16(4), pages 769-797, October.
    2. Ricardo Hausmann & Bailey Klinger, 2008. "South Africa's export predicament," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 16(4), pages 609-637, October.
    3. Hausmann, Ricardo & Rodrik, Dani, 2003. "Economic development as self-discovery," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 603-633, December.
    4. Bernard, Andrew B. & Bradford Jensen, J., 1999. "Exceptional exporter performance: cause, effect, or both?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 1-25, February.
    5. A. Black & S Mitchell, 2002. "Policy In The South African Motor Industry: Goals, Incentives, And Outcomes1," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 70(8), pages 1273-1297, December.
    6. Lawrence Edwards & Volker Schoer, 2002. "Measures Of Competitiveness: A Dynamic Approach To South Africa'S Trade Performance In The 1990s," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 70(6), pages 1008-1046, September.
    7. Lawrence Edwards & Phil Alves, 2006. "South Africa'S Export Performance: Determinants Of Export Supply," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 74(3), pages 473-500, September.
    8. Svedberg, Peter, 1991. "The Export Performance of Sub-Saharan Africa," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(3), pages 549-566, April.
    9. Turan Subasat, 2002. "Does Export Promotion Increase Economic Growth? Some Cross‐Section Evidence," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 20(3), pages 333-349, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rougier, Eric, 2016. "“Fire in Cairo”: Authoritarian–Redistributive Social Contracts, Structural Change, and the Arab Spring," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 148-171.
    2. Olivier Cadot & Céline Carrère & Vanessa Strauss-Kahn, 2013. "Trade Diversification, Income, And Growth: What Do We Know?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 790-812, September.
    3. Volpe Martincus, Christian & Carballo, Jerónimo, 2010. "Beyond the average effects: The distributional impacts of export promotion programs in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 201-214, July.
    4. Dosi, Giovanni & Roventini, Andrea & Russo, Emanuele, 2019. "Endogenous growth and global divergence in a multi-country agent-based model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 101-129.
    5. Harrison, Ann & Rodríguez-Clare, Andrés, 2010. "Trade, Foreign Investment, and Industrial Policy for Developing Countries," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4039-4214, Elsevier.
    6. Mats Lundahl & Lennart Petersson, 2009. "Post-Apartheid South Africa: An Economic Success Story?," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2009-56, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    7. Torstein Bye & Erling Erling Holmoy, 2010. "Removing Policy-based Comparative Advantage for Energy Intensive Production: Necessary Adjustments of the Real Exchange Rate and Industry Structure," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 1), pages 177-198.
    8. Dani Rodrik, 2008. "Understanding South Africa's economic puzzles," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 16(4), pages 769-797, October.
    9. Gnangnon, Sèna Kimm, 2021. "Effect of the Utilization of Non-Reciprocal Trade Preferences offered by the QUAD on Economic Growth in Beneficiary Countries," EconStor Preprints 242848, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    10. Ricardo A. López, 2009. "Do Firms Increase Productivity in Order to Become Exporters?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(5), pages 621-642, October.
    11. Kichun Kang & Phyllis Keys & Yoon S. Shin, 2016. "Free Trade Agreements And Bridgehead Effect: Evidence From Korea–Chile Fta," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 61(05), pages 1-17, December.
    12. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/46k9rkvut99i7qnn4vqm25t53b is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Bernard Hoekman, 2004. "Policies Facilitating Firm Adjustment to Globalization," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 20(3), pages 457-473, Autumn.
    14. Özler, Sule & Taymaz, Erol & YIlmaz, Kamil, 2009. "History Matters for the Export Decision: Plant-Level Evidence from Turkish Manufacturing Industry," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 479-488, February.
    15. Armando Silva & Óscar Afonso & Ana Paula Africano, 2010. "Do Portuguese manufacturing firms self select to exports?," FEP Working Papers 371, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    16. Philippe Aghion & Johannes Fedderke & Peter Howitt & Nicola Viegi, 2013. "Testing creative destruction in an opening economy," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 21(3), pages 419-450, July.
    17. Gnangnon, Sèna Kimm, 2023. "Effects of the Utilization of Non-Reciprocal Trade Preferences Offered by QUAD Countries on Economic Growth in Beneficiary Countries," KDI Journal of Economic Policy, Korea Development Institute (KDI), vol. 45(1), pages 33-68.
    18. Bjørn Bo Sørensen, 2020. "Turnin' it up a notch: how spillovers from foreign direct investment boost the complexity of South Africa's exports," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-3, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Wagner, Rodrigo & Zahler, Andrés, 2015. "New exports from emerging markets: Do followers benefit from pioneers?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 203-223.
    20. Edwards, Lawrence J & Garlick, Robert, 2008. "Trade flows and the exchange rate in South Africa," MPRA Paper 36666, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Jørn Rattsø & Hildegunn E. Stokke, 2009. "Trade barriers to growth in South Africa: Endogenous investment-productivity-trade interaction," DEGIT Conference Papers c014_010, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic Theory&Research; Transport Economics Policy&Planning; Free Trade; Debt Markets; Tax Law;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:5585. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.