IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/deveza/v32y2015i6p639-657.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Twenty-year review of South African fiscal policy: A tale of two sustainabilities

Author

Listed:
  • Philippe Burger
  • Estian Calitz

Abstract

In 2014 democracy in South Africa was 20 years old. The democratic government in 1994 inherited both a high and increasing public debt/gross domestic product ratio and significant development backlogs. The government had to establish fiscal sustainability, yet also pursue development in a sustainable way. This article explores the government's performance in reconciling fiscal sustainability with sustainable development. The article shows that fiscal policy has been sustainable over the 20 years, with some risks appearing towards the end, and that the government pursued sustainable development through reallocating resources within the budget and by spending more in real terms. Three phases can be identified: 1994-2000, 2001-08 and 2009-13. However, poor service delivery and low levels of government investment during the 20 years threaten to undermine economic growth. Lower growth consequently threatens the sustainability of both fiscal policy and development, which, in turn, again undermines growth prospects. Hence, the article also identifies key future challenges.

Suggested Citation

  • Philippe Burger & Estian Calitz, 2015. "Twenty-year review of South African fiscal policy: A tale of two sustainabilities," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(6), pages 639-657, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:deveza:v:32:y:2015:i:6:p:639-657
    DOI: 10.1080/0376835X.2015.1063989
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/0376835X.2015.1063989
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/0376835X.2015.1063989?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christopher Loewald & David Faulkner & Konstantin Makrelov, 2020. "Time consistency and economic growth a case study of south african macroeconomic policy," Working Papers 10421, South African Reserve Bank.
    2. Olumide Olusegun Olaoye & Phillip A. Olomola, 2023. "Sub‐Saharan Africa's rising public debt stock: Is there a cause for concern?," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 91(1), pages 85-115, March.
    3. Olaoye, Olumide Olusegun & Olomola, P.A., 2022. "Empirical analysis of asymmetry phenomenon in the public debt structure of Sub-Saharan Africa's five biggest economies: A Markov-Switching model," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 25(C).
    4. Philippe Burger, 2023. "The economic context of realizing socioeconomic rights in South Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2023-129, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Johan Fourie, 2016. "The long walk to economic freedom after apartheid, and the road ahead," Working Papers 11/2016, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    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:taf:deveza:v:32:y:2015:i:6:p:639-657. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CDSA20 .

    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.