IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sza/wpaper/wpapers118.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An alternative perspective on South Africa’s public debt, 1962-1994

Author

Listed:
  • Estian Calitz

    (Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch)

  • Stan du Plessis

    (Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch)

  • Krige Siebrits

    (Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch)

Abstract

The history of public debt reflects the cumulative effect of fiscal decisions and real outcomes in the economy. In the South African case the published record on public debt distorts the historical perspective on the associated fiscal decisions. This note shows the impact of adjusting the South African public debt on an accrual basis to take account of two major obligations assumed in the first half of the 1990s, namely actuarial pension fund deficits and government debt of the apartheid homelands. The adjusted series is less volatile and rose less steeply between 1989 and 1996 than the official, cash based debt series. Failing to account for the evolution of these obligations exaggerates the impression of weak fiscal discipline in the early nineties and exemplary fiscal prudence in preceding decades.

Suggested Citation

  • Estian Calitz & Stan du Plessis & Krige Siebrits, 2010. "An alternative perspective on South Africa’s public debt, 1962-1994," Working Papers 19/2010, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics, revised 2010.
  • Handle: RePEc:sza:wpaper:wpapers118
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ekon.sun.ac.za/wpapers/2010/wp192010/wp-19-2010.1.pdf
    File Function: Revised version (version 2), 2010
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tania Ajam & Aron Janine, 2007. "Fiscal Renaissance in a Democratic South Africa," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 16(5), pages 745-781, November.
    2. Tania Ajam & Aron Janine, 2007. "Fiscal Renaissance in a Democratic South Africa," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), vol. 16(5), pages 745-781, November.
    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. Sean J. Gossel & Nicholas Biekpe, 2013. "The Cyclical Relationships Between South Africa's Net Capital Inflows and Fiscal and Monetary Policies," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(2), pages 64-83, March.
    2. Richard Kneller & Florian Misch, 2014. "The Effects Of Public Spending Composition On Firm Productivity," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(4), pages 1525-1542, October.
    3. Kojo Menyah & Yemane Wolde-Rufael, 2012. "Wagner'S Law Revisited: A Note From South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 80(2), pages 200-208, June.
    4. Broadberry, Stephen & Gardner, Leigh, 2014. "African economic growth in a European mirror: a historical perspective," Economic History Working Papers 56493, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    5. Stan Du Plessis & Ben Smit & Federico Sturzenegger, 2007. "The Cyclicality Of Monetary And Fiscal Policy In South Africa Since 1994," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 75(3), pages 391-411, September.
    6. Charl Jooste & Marina Marinkov, 2012. "South Africa'S Transition To A Consolidated Budget," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 80(2), pages 181-199, June.
    7. Eugene Msizi BUTHELEZI, 2023. "Impact of Fiscal Consolidation on Government Debt in South Africa: Evidence to Structural and Cyclical Effect," Journal of Economics and Financial Analysis, Tripal Publishing House, vol. 7(2), pages 1-23.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    South African public debt; fiscal discipline; accrual classification; pension fund deficits; sub-national debt;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H62 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Deficit; Surplus
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors

    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:sza:wpaper:wpapers118. 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: Melt van Schoor (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/desunza.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.