This paper compares the accuracy of the GDP growth and inflation forecasts made by private sector forecasters who participate in the annual “Media24 Economist of the Year” forecasting competition to the official forecasts of the public sector, namely, the read more

This paper compares the accuracy of the GDP growth and inflation forecasts made by private sector forecasters who participate in the annual “Media24 Economist of the Year” forecasting competition to the official forecasts of the public sector, namely, the National Treasury (NT) and the South African Reserve Bank (SARB). We include the inflation expectations as gathered through the Bureau for Economic Research (BER) quarterly survey, since these estimates constitute an integral part in informing the course of the SARB’s monetary policy decisions. Furthermore, we compare the accuracy of the aforementioned entities to the forecasts of an adaptive-naïve model that generates forecasts through the extrapolation of past actual inflation observations. This is undertaken using a combination of descriptive statistics and quantitative measures which allow for the analysis of both absolute and relative accuracy. We also undertake a non-parametric test for forecast dominance. Furthermore a deeper investigation of the relevant accuracy of public sector official forecasts compared to those made by private sectors participants, reveal that on average, over the full sample period, and with respect to both current and one year-ahead forecast, the BER have been more accurate than both the NT and the SARB.

The study evaluates the significance of cross-border banking and international financial flows in enhancing financial deepening in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), including isolating the impact of regional, or pan-African, banks. The study read more

The study evaluates the significance of cross-border banking and international financial flows in enhancing financial deepening in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), including isolating the impact of regional, or pan-African, banks. The study also attempts to estimate the responses of the domestic financial sector to shocks in foreign banks and financial flows. Dynamic panel and general method of moments (GMM) estimations established that cross-border bank slows down development of domestic financial markets, although there are traces of positive effects in some measures. Pan-African Banks support credit development in domestic markets although diluting profitability. Impulse response and variance decomposition shows a largely negative reaction of domestic financial markets to shocks in foreign banks and financial flows in the short run, with the reaction turning positive in the long run. Indicatively, the results are demonstrating limited, but positive, financial spill-overs effects of foreign banks on financial development of other SADC countries. Pan-African Banks are still to have a significant impact in the SADC countries.

Any African countries experience power shortages and regular interruptions in electricity supply. We use stochastic frontier models to study the impact of power disruptions on the efficiency of African manufacturing firms. Power disruptions appear to have read more

Any African countries experience power shortages and regular interruptions in electricity supply. We use stochastic frontier models to study the impact of power disruptions on the efficiency of African manufacturing firms. Power disruptions appear to have negative effects on efficiency and the use of generators further exacerbates the impact. The interaction of power outages with generator ownership result in a negative effect on efficiency and this could probably be explained by the high cost of running these alternative power sources. Our results support a policy of investment in the electricity sector, to improve the maintenance and quality of infrastructure that is used to generate power in African countries.

In this paper, we extend the literature on modelling exchange rate volatility in South Africa by estimating a range of models, including some that attempt to account for structural breaks and long memory. We examine the key nominal exchange rates of the South read more

In this paper, we extend the literature on modelling exchange rate volatility in South Africa by estimating a range of models, including some that attempt to account for structural breaks and long memory. We examine the key nominal exchange rates of the South African rand and replicate common findings in the literature; particularly that volatility is ‘persistent’. We investigate whether this ‘persistence’ is due to structural breaks or long memory, and the extent of asymmetric responses of the rand to ‘good news’ and ‘bad news’. Our results show that while long memory is evident in the actual processes, a structural break analysis reveals that this feature is partially explained by unaccounted shifts in volatility regime; the most striking finding is the remarkable fall in the estimates of volatility persistence when considerably more structural breaks than those identified in recent studies are detected and integrated into the generalised autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) framework. Furthermore, the asymmetric GARCH model results provide evidence of leverage effects, indicating that negative shocks imply a higher next period volatility than positive shocks. The empirical results also shed light on the timing and likely triggers of volatility regime switching.