Completed research
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Working paper
We use individual-level tax administrative data to estimate personal income inequality among the tax-compliant population in South Africa over the period 2011–21. Our results indicate that inequality of this population rose slightly over the period...
SEPTEMBER 2024
Labour market and inequality
Working paper
Refunds are an essential feature of well-functioning VAT systems and take up a sizeable portion of government spending. In South Africa, refunds amount to 50 per cent of gross VAT collection, representing a substantial transfer...
SEPTEMBER 2024
Public revenue
Blog
South Africa faces a dual challenge of limited fiscal space—the need to raise sufficient revenues to finance public services—and high levels of inequality. One possible solution is to raise tax rates on the rich. If...
August 2024
Public revenue
Blog
Sub-Saharan Africa has abundant natural resources and a substantial market, with an estimated population of 1.2 billion. The population is projected to grow by nearly 80% and reach almost 2 billion people by 2043. This...
February 2024
News
To support evidence-based policymaking across southern and east Africa, UNU-WIDER, in collaboration with the National Treasury of South Africa, the Spatial Economic Activity Data South Africa (SEADsa), and the SA-TIED programme, successfully organized a capacity...
December 2023
Working paper
South Africa has a progressive broad-based personal income tax system with relatively few tax expenditures. The two most important are the medical contribution plus additional tax credits for medical expenses, and the deductions allowed for...
November 2023
Public revenue
Working paper
Faced with more favourable demand conditions, many firms raise wages. However, we show that firms with labour market power, lower productivity, and binding wage floors will absorb these positive revenue productivity shocks as excess profits...
November 2023
Enterprise development
Working paper
This paper investigates the role of firm characteristics in driving wage inequality and firm wage premia in the South African labour market. The Abowd, Kramarz, and Margolis (AKM) and Kline, Saggio, and Sølvsten (KSS) regression-based...
October 2023
Labour market and inequality
Working paper
The attainment of financial independence by women holds significant importance for women’s empowerment and has implications for the increasing prevalence of female-headed households in the country. Previous estimates of the gender wage gap in South...
October 2023
Labour market and inequality
News
SA-TIED marked a significant milestone on 13 October 2023, by hosting an inaugural National Treasury Secure Data Facility (NTSDF) data lab roadshow at the University of Pretoria . The event featured a presentation by the...
October 2023
Enterprise development
Public revenue
Labour market and inequality
Journal article
Marlies Piek , Dieter von Fintel , Johann Kirsten This paper is the first to provide estimates of how minimum wages affect worker flows and employment growth rates in an employment scarce developing country context...
SEPTEMBER 2023
Working paper
Andrew R. Donaldson March 2023 Tax administration statistics now provide considerably more complete and reliable measures of South African personal income and its distribution than the available household or other survey sources. However, there are...
March 2023
Labour market and inequality
Journal article
How important are firms for wage inequality in developing countries where structural unemployment is high? Research focused on contexts close to full employment has suggested a substantial role of firms in labor market inequality...
MARCH 2023
Working paper
Globally, corporate cash holdings have risen since the 1980s. In South Africa, some commentators have accused corporations of engaging in an ‘investment strike’, while others see corporate liquidity as a precaution against systemic uncertainty. We...
August 2022
Enterprise development
Working paper
Extractive industries form an important part of the economy for many developing countries, but their impact on growth and welfare remains understudied. With global efforts to transition to net-zero carbon emissions in the coming decades...
February 2022
Enterprise development
Technical note
We update Kreuser and Newman’s (2018) total factor productivity estimates for the South African manufacturing sector using administrative data from 2009–17. We use standard implementations of the Ackerberg et al. (2015) and Wooldridge (2009) productivity...
December 2021
Enterprise development