IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rza/ersawp/277.html

Understanding South Africa’s mining slowdown

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Botha

    (BER)

Abstract

South Africa’s mining sector presents a significant economic paradox: despite possessing a mineral endowment of global significance—particularly in platinum group metals (PGMs), manganese, and chromium—the industry has experienced a profound structural decline since the 1970s. This paper investigates the binding constraints that have prevented the sector from capitalising on global commodity booms and the green energy transition. Applying the Growth Diagnostics framework developed by Hausmann, Rodrik, and Velasco (2005), the study argues that the sector's decline is primarily endogenous, driven by human-made constraints rather than geological exhaustion. Botha, R. (2026). Understanding South Africa’s mining slowdown (ERSA Policy Paper No. 43). Economic Research Southern Africa. https://doi.org/10.71587/0jznvd71

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Botha, 2026. "Understanding South Africa’s mining slowdown," ERSA Working Paper Series 277, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    • Handle: RePEc:rza:ersawp:277
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ersawps.org/index.php/working-paper-series/article/view/277/181
    File Function: First version, 2026
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • L72 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Primary Products and Construction - - - Mining, Extraction, and Refining: Other Nonrenewable Resources
    • O42 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Monetary Growth Models
    • Q38 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation - - - Government Policy (includes OPEC Policy)
    • L71 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Primary Products and Construction - - - Mining, Extraction, and Refining: Hydrocarbon Fuels

    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:rza:ersawp:277. 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: Maggi Sigg (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://ersawps.org/index.php/working-paper-series/ .

    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.