Displaying items by tag: Economic Growth

LESOTHO HAS achieved solid economic growth and a seemingly positive shift in the output structure. Nonetheless, these have not translated into corresponding improvements in employment and poverty outcomes. The literature identifies a number of factors that explain this phenomenon. The empirical analysis and case studies included in this paper reveal that economic growth should be supplemented with employment generating economic structural transformation to have a meaningful poverty reducing impact. Effective economic transformation can be achieved when there is an effective institutional structure in place to support implementation of strategic development policies. Development of effective institutions could be the solution to Lesotho’s sluggish implementation of strategic development policies. Lesotho needs to define the kind of institutions that have to be developed to address all impediments to effective implementation of policies that have the potential to transform the economy, generate employment and address poverty.

THIS PAPER INVESTIAGES the spill-over effects of South Africa’s economic growth on the Common Monetary Area (CMA). It uses simple correlation analysis and panel data econometric techniques (Fixed Effects, Difference and System Generalised Methods of Moments and Panel Vector Autoregression). The findings reveal that even though South Africa is closely linked with the Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland (LNS) countries through trade, financial and institutional linkages, economic growth in South Africa does not appear to have a significant spill-over effects on the CMA. However, a simple correlation analysis shows that there is indeed a statistically significant positive relationship between economic growth in South Africa and economic growth in the CMA  region, implying that a slowdown in SA economic growth is likely to have negative implications on the CMA.