The Contribution Of Corporate Savings In South Africa To Recent Record Current Account Deficits

Recently South Africa recorded record current account deficits at a time of high commodity prices. A major contributor to these deficits was a lower level of corporate saving. Low domestic savings makes South Africa reliant on foreign capital inflows to fund higher investment levels and the resultant current account deficits. This paper seeks to identify reasons for the fall in corporate saving using econometric techniques to analyse the relationships between corporate saving and six explanatory macroeconomic variables. Significant variables identified are the real effective exchange rate, a commodity price index and a coincident business cycle indicator. The results show that these variables explain most of the variation in corporate saving, although they do not conform to a priori expectations.