Quantifying economic recovery from the recent global financial crisis

This paper quantifies economic recovery following the recent global financial crisis in South Africa. In particular, the paper measures the causal impact of the economic policy interventions following the global financial crisis. The results show that real GDP growth recorded an average of 1.9 percent and a cumulative of 13.0 percent post the global financial crisis. The counterfactual prediction shows that the economy could have recorded the average real GDP growth of 3.0 percent and a cumulative of 21.0 percent in the period post the global financial crisis had the economic policy interventions been successful. Thus the causal impact of the economic policy interventions is the average real GDP growth of -1.2 percent and a cumulative of -8.1 percent so that the relative causal impact of the economic policy interventions is -38.0 percent. The paper, therefore, concludes that perhaps the economic policy interventions to restore economic performance to the pre global financial crisis period levels did not achieve the desired results.