2024-04-26 07:38
Poaching has decimated South Africa’s rhino population. We estimate that over 10000 rhinos have been poached since 2004. Available estimates show that the Kruger National Park’s… Read More
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Daily economic and financial analysis
2024-04-26 04:41
South Africa’s GDP growth slowed dramatically after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and COVID-19 pandemic. What is not commonly appreciated is the dramatic impact this has had on Sou… Read More
2024-04-25 06:46
Municipal spending in South Africa grew at an annual inflation-adjusted rate of almost 10% per year between 2013 and 2019. Employee compensation grew at almost 5% per year, while councillor… Read More
2024-04-25 05:42
The amount of equity capital raised in South Africa declined from over 10% of GDP in 1998 to below 1% by 2018. Issuances of government debt, on the other hand, have risen over the last two d… Read More
2024-04-24 07:55
The IMF WEO for April 2024 suggests that South Africa is strongly impacted by shocks in emerging markets (with the highest estimated average contribution from G20 Emerging Markets (EM) among… Read More
2024-04-24 04:21
The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) published its latest Monetary Policy Review (MPR) yesterday. As usual, it provides a bunch of interesting analysis about the current business cycle.
It… Read More
2024-04-23 06:25
Simple statistical filters for estimating the output gap (a measure of economic slack) suggest that it remains in positive territory. Our filters suggest that potential growth remains below… Read More
2024-04-23 04:20
The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) publishes composite business cycle indicators to provide an early signal of what economic data imply for economic conditions. Analysts have been i… Read More
2024-04-22 13:55
Codera is pleased to announce the launch of historical Association for Savings and Investment South Africa (ASISA) data in EconData. EconData now makes it possible to download time series of… Read More
2024-04-22 06:49
Since the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) began publishing projections, its projections for current year and next year South African GDP growth (as projected at the time of the March Monet… Read More
2024-04-22 04:26
South Africa is not well integrated into global value chains compared with G20 emerging markets. The chart below shows that the IMF estimates that South Africa’s input linkages are gen… Read More
2024-04-19 06:40
Research Papers in Economics (IDEAS/RePEc), a repository of Economics publications tracking citations and paper reads, lists the Faculty of Economic & Management (University of Pretoria)… Read More
2024-04-19 04:30
Since 2008, the Western Cape has been responsible for 32% of employment growth. Limpopo was responsible for 25%, followed by Gauteng at 18%.
The post Western Cape responsible for 32% of em… Read More
2024-04-18 07:14
In today’s blog post, I repost last week’s Business Day article in which I provide suggestions for improvements to the SARB’s monetary policy communication.
SA ha… Read More
2024-04-18 03:54
South Africa Incorporated used to owe the world more than the value of assets it owned abroad. However, since 2015, South Africa has had a positive net international investment position. Thi… Read More
2024-04-17 06:41
We are busy staging historical data from the Association for Savings and Investment South Africa (ASISA) on EconData, making it easy for users to automate analysis at collective investment f… Read More
2024-04-17 04:53
March inflation data for South Africa will be published today. Expect market analysts to immediately make unqualified assertions about what the outcome for core inflation will mean for headl… Read More
2024-04-16 10:20
In today’s EconData Blog post, we show how you can use the EcondatarR package to create visualisations of South African public finance data. Try the platform for free at https://econda… Read More
2024-04-16 09:42
Codera is pleased to announce the launch of a South African Public Finance Module in EconData. EconData now makes it possible to download time series of Budget Review concepts as time series… Read More
2024-04-16 04:09
Today’s post summarises the composition of net financial flows in South Africa. South Africa has continued to attract enough foreign capital to cover its current account deficit. Howev… Read More
2024-04-15 06:38
Productivity South Africa’s estimates show that real wages and unit labour costs grew faster than labour productivity in the government sector since 2000.
Footnote
It is difficult to… Read More
2024-04-15 04:18
The relative price of petrol compared to wages and overall consumer prices has increased dramatically since mid 2020. Average wages have increased at a compounded annual average rate of 6.7%… Read More
2024-04-12 06:45
How does data availability compare across countries? The World Bank is a major source of country-level economic, financial and socioeconomic data. In this post, we summarise the number of da… Read More
2024-04-12 04:19
In today’s blog post, I repost last week’s Business Day article in which I provide suggestions for improvements to the SARB’s monetary policy communication.
Time central ba… Read More
2024-04-11 11:12
Results from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor survey suggests the entrepreneurship rate have been rising in South Africa over time, although it fell markedly post COVID-19 pandemic. The s… Read More
2024-04-11 03:48
Research output from the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) and Economic Research South Africa (ERSA) have declined over recent years. ERSA’s decline in working papers published is part… Read More
2024-04-10 07:03
Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange (SDMX) is an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard that is widely adopted as a global standard for data exchange. SDMX is promo… Read More
2024-04-10 04:52
While fixed rate mortgages are quite common in many countries, South Africa stands out for having a very low proportion of fixed rate mortgages. The IMF argues that this strengthens monetary… Read More
2024-04-09 06:26
Services charges make up approximately 40% of municipal revenue in South Africa. Electricity represents about 40% of service income, property rates 25% and water about 15%.
The post Munici… Read More
2024-04-09 04:32
One possible explanation for South Africa’s steep sovereign yield curve is that elevated exchange rate depreciation risk has been embedded in our long term interest rates. Options-impl… Read More
2024-04-08 06:50
The No Drop report for 2023 estimates that around 41% of water authority water supply is lost, almost double the level in 2005. The percentage of water supply which is not billed for has als… Read More
2024-04-08 04:13
To assess the stance of fiscal policy over time, I estimate South Africa’s ‘fiscal space’, which refers to the extent to which there remains fiscal resources for fiscal pol… Read More
2024-04-05 06:50
Africa has around 345 $1 Billion+ companies, with almost 150 (around 40%) of them based in South Africa.
The post Billion dollar companies in Africa appeared first on Codera Analytics Read More
2024-04-05 03:36
South Africa’s GDP per capita, a simple measure of labour productivity and relative income, has fallen since 2017. The real value of average compensation rose between 2008 and 2021, bu… Read More
2024-04-04 06:58
South Africa ranks 7th globally for extent of criminality according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime Report. Although the report finds that South Africa’s… Read More
2024-04-04 04:06
According to the World Bank’s assessment, China has a higher rating of statistical capacity than South Africa and other major BRICS countries. South Africa is falling behind in things… Read More
2024-04-03 06:31
South Africa’s GDP per capita has fallen below the common currency level for emerging market and developing economies as a group. The IMF predicts that South Africa’s relative le… Read More
2024-04-03 04:09
Policy rate changes may affect banking system deposit and loan volumes. This matters for how the monetary policy cycle impacts bank profitability, as well as monetary policy pass-through. To… Read More
2024-04-02 07:01
Even though residential construction activity in the Western Cape rose over the last couple of years, overall construction activity is down compared to earlier decades, especially if express… Read More
2024-04-02 04:22
Many financial market analysts use FX positioning data to make statements about likely future movements in exchange rates. Today’s post looks at the correlation between FX speculative… Read More
2024-04-01 04:21
Both consumption and investment per capita have been declining in South Africa since 2015, with the decline in investment particularly marked.
The post Real investment and consumption per… Read More
2024-03-29 04:07
Today’s post shows the composition of the top contributors to municipal revenue and spending by province in South Africa. Service charges and transfers are the largest components of re… Read More
2024-03-28 06:17
South Africa’s minimum wage was recently increased to R27.6 for hour (or R4400 per fulltime worker per month). According to estimates available from the Living wage and income dataset… Read More
2024-03-28 03:45
We showed in an earlier post that almost half of South Africa’s water supply systems have been assessed to have poor microbiological quality or bad compliance. The 2023 No Drop Re… Read More
2024-03-27 06:49
My article below was published in the Business Day on Monday, below I repost the article.
More monetary policy guidance please
Over the last several years, market expectations of the South A… Read More
2024-03-27 03:53
Eskom’s aggregate standard tariffs have increased at almost 15 percent per year since 2010, compared to average CPI inflation of about 5.2 percent over this period. Eskom’s curre… Read More
2024-03-26 07:05
Since the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) began publishing projections, their GDP projections have been less accurate than those of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the current pr… Read More
2024-03-26 04:04
In today’s post, I back out market expectations of future USDZAR movements using options prices. The first chart shows that the distribution of the USDZAR’s options-implied densi… Read More
2024-03-25 06:30
BankservAfrica publish nominal and real takehome pay and private pensions indices. Curiously, nominal takehome pay growth has been very low: averaging only 1.2% in 2023, or 2.5% on average s… Read More
2024-03-25 04:01
Codera’s core inflation measure continues to suggest that it is too early to call the abatement of inflation pressures in South Africa. Our measure suggests that there has been mo… Read More
2024-03-22 04:59
South Korea stands out globally for the number of researchers per capita and the level of funding for R&D. South Africa spends more than many emerging markets on R&D but has a relati… Read More
2024-03-22 03:57
Exchange rate changes can induce wealth effects because they change the relative values of imported goods and services and exports. A recent IMF paper assesses valuation effects from exchang… Read More
2024-03-21 03:13
South Africa is not alone in having experienced negative real house price growth since 2010 – the same has been observed in Spain, Russia and Italy.
The post Real growth in house pric… Read More
2024-03-20 06:01
The real USD price of crude oil is more than 7 times higher than in 1960, while it is over 8 times higher in the case of gold.
The post Long term real oil and gold prices appeared first on C… Read More
2024-03-20 03:59
The options market can help us understand how events affect currency expectations and uncertainty. In today’s post, we look back and estimate how market expectations of the future valu… Read More
2024-03-19 05:44
The 2023 Blue Drop Report suggested that Gauteng water management had the highest capacity availability and the lowest acute health compliance problems. The Free State had the highest unacce… Read More
2024-03-19 04:10
We estimate that options market pricing suggests that the implied probability of a 10% or greater depreciation of the USDZAR over the next 12 months is currently lower than for a large appre… Read More
2024-03-18 06:53
In today’s post, we aggregate municipal data to compare how maintenance and repair spending compares to the asset base of each province. South African municipalities are spending very… Read More
2024-03-18 04:16
US Commodity Futures Trading Commission data suggest that the futures market is holding large net speculative positions in the Mexican peso (long) and the Japanese Yen and Australian dollar… Read More
2024-03-15 07:23
Losses and gains in forest land vary widely around the world. Côte d’Ivoire lost almost 45% of its forest between 2000 and 2020, while countries like Uruguay and Cuba experienced… Read More
2024-03-15 04:09
Bid-cover ratios provide a measure of the extent of demand for sovereign money market instruments and debt issuances. Floating rate notes have had higher weighted bid cover ratios than other… Read More
2024-03-14 06:18
BankServAfrica’s banking activity index (BETI) is available with a short lead time, making it a potentially useful source of information with which to nowcast GDP. During the COVID-19… Read More
2024-03-14 03:50
IMF estimates suggest that port activity has declined since 2019 at several ports in South Africa, both in terms of port calls and trade volumes.
The post Port trade volumes in SA appeared… Read More
2024-03-13 08:58
Almost 30% of water systems audited in the Blue Drop audit for South Africa are in a critical state. This is up from 17% in 2014.
Footnote
Note that the number of systems audited has decrea… Read More
2024-03-13 04:14
House prices in South Africa have been rising slower than consumer prices since the global financial crisis of 2008. Statistics SA estimates imply that Cape Town has been the only metropolit… Read More
2024-03-12 09:36
Easing inflationary pressures have created a debate about whether central banks will start to lower interest rates. Our estimates of the neutral rates embedded in sovereign yield curves sugg… Read More
2024-03-12 06:07
Construction materials prices have increased at faster than Headline consumer prices since 2015, although some sub-components, such as concrete has increased by less than CPI. As shown in pr… Read More
2024-03-12 04:32
Average wages at Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) grew much faster than headline CPI for several years post-Global Financial Crisis, but has declined recently after over1000 &ls&hell…Read More
2024-03-11 04:42
Port activity has declined at several ports in South Africa. Compared to 2019, year-to-date ship arrivals are down over 55% at the port of Port Elizabeth, 30% at Richards Bay, 18% at Saldanh… Read More
2024-03-11 03:51
Sovereign 10-year rates have increased in several major economies over the last several months. Our estimates suggest that a rise in term premia contributed meaningfully to the observed incr… Read More
2024-03-08 07:30
The number of trades on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange has increased more than three fold since 2010, while it has increased almost five-fold on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
The post Numbe… Read More
2024-03-08 04:05
The Public Investment Corporation (PIC) of South Africa manages public sector workers’ pension funds. Their overall investment allocation is dominated by investments in South African d… Read More
2024-03-07 06:49
Residential and non-residential construction activity has declined substantially in South Africa compared to earlier decades. Construction activity has been particularly weak given South Afr… Read More
2024-03-07 04:01
In today’s post, I estimate the option-implied distribution around future values of the USDZAR. As depicted in the fan chart, the options market expects the rand to remain weak against… Read More
2024-03-06 07:03
The real price of tea has more than halved since 1960, while coffee is 15% lower, and cocoa is about 5% lower than in 1960. Sugar is almost 35% more expensive, and beef 15% more expensive in… Read More
2024-03-06 04:53
Chicken price inflation over the last year has varied a lot across chicken products and supermarkets. Woolworths rotisserie chicken, for example, increased by 10%, while Woolworths chicken b… Read More
2024-03-05 07:05
Something that is not generally appreciated about relying on foreign savings to finance South Africa’s persistent current account deficit is that this implies growing claims on the inc… Read More
2024-03-05 04:13
In nominal terms, Gauteng, the Eastern Cape and Free State have had the highest levels of non-compliant expenditure (sum of irregular, unauthorized and fruitless and wasteful expenditure) be… Read More
2024-03-04 17:02
Bjorn Lomborg argues in a new paper that climate change is not the costliest problem facing humanity and that on a cost-benefit basis climate policy performs poorly relative to policies aime… Read More
2024-03-04 07:14
While the Western Cape has experienced the fastest increase in property prices according to data from Statistics South Africa, PayProp data shows that the Northern Cape has experienced the f… Read More
2024-03-04 04:32
Our term premium model shows that the increase in nominal government bond yield in South Africa since its trough in 2013 reflected a higher term premium and not a meaningful change in expect… Read More
2024-03-01 05:21
Since the global financial crisis, South Africa’s growth performance has been persistently weaker than that of the global economy. The IMF expects this underperformance to continue.
T… Read More
2024-03-01 03:30
The number of listed companies in South Africa has declined by two thirds since 1990. The number of listed companies has also declined meaningfully in major economies like the USA, although… Read More
2024-02-29 06:16
We showed in an earlier post that Wier and Zucman (2022) estimated that about 9% of South African corporate tax receipts have been shifted to tax havens. A new paper by Garcia-Bernardo and J… Read More
2024-02-29 04:58
There was a big spike in the extent of trading in single stock options and futures contracts in the lead up to the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. Since the… Read More
2024-02-28 11:06
Global Trade Advisors have released a new report into tariff investigations by the International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC). The report contains a large number of striking statis… Read More
2024-02-28 04:49
The ratio of government grant recipients to taxpayers has risen to 3.75-to-1 (based on National Treasury estimates). The ratio for 2020/21 is over 4-to-1 if provincial and national governmen… Read More
2024-02-27 07:12
Withdrawal of capital by non-residents from South Africa has seen South Africa’s direct and portfolio foreign liabilities decline over recent years. South Africa’s foreign direct… Read More
2024-02-27 03:36
In the United States and other advanced economies, the share of intangible assets (such as software, data, intellectual property or a firm’s brand) in the total capital stock has risen… Read More
2024-02-26 05:50
South Africa ranks last among major economies in terms of per capita growth in common currency terms since 2010.
The post Long term per capita growth in selected economies appeared first on… Read More
2024-02-26 04:03
Capitec stands out among large South African bank for its high historical net interest margins and low cost to income ratio.
The post Selected bank NIMs and cost to income ratios appeared f… Read More
2024-02-23 05:44
2023 saw an increase in violent unrest in several parts of Africa, particularly in countries such as Sudan and Kenya.
The post Unrest in Africa appeared first on Codera Analytics Read More
2024-02-23 04:00
The number of listings on the JSE has declined by almost two thirds since its peak in 1990, while the number of new listings has been much lower since 2000 than in earlier decades.
The post… Read More
2024-02-22 04:11
Government spends the largest share of expenditure on the public wage bill (around 32%), followed by debt-service costs (taking up around 16%). Social grants have risen strongly and now take… Read More
2024-02-22 03:47
Yesterday’s budget projects debt to stabilise in 2025/26 at a lower level than in the MTBPS of last year. In large part, this reflects a planned draw-down of Treasury’s Gold and… Read More
2024-02-21 06:06
We have added automated charts to EconData’s blog to demonstrate how easy it is to update insights from data releases using the platform.
The post Updated insights from QLFS using Eco… Read More
2024-02-21 03:48
The IMF expects South Africa’s government debt to GDP ratio to rise to over 85% of GDP by 2028. More than half of the countries plotted are expected to see government debt decline over… Read More
2024-02-20 07:49
Plant, machinery and equipment represent almost 50% of South Africa’s physical capital stock according to Statistics South Africa’ Annual Financial Statistics. There has been ver… Read More
2024-02-20 03:24
Unemployment is higher among women than men in South Africa. Men have a higher participation and absorption rate. EconData makes it easy to download data from official publications like the… Read More
2024-02-19 05:10
Today’s post estimates the cost of bank equity capital in South Africa. I show that there has been a decline in the banking sector’s equity-to-asset ratio over recent year, an in… Read More
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