Ramaphosa’s stimulus package is more interesting for what it says about the politics of economic decision making than for its likely impact on the economy.
Households feeling the pinch from frozen wages feeds into slower economic growth, and policymakers need to find a solution.
Bacho/Shutterstock
Governments can’t undo the technological changes behind frozen wages and rising inequality. The best policy is to invest in education and training to give workers skills of value in the new economy.
South Africa’s governing ANC has always seen economic growth as the driving force for change. This was wishful thinking as the damage done by apartheid will take far more to undo.
The treasurer referred to the A$13 billion “zombie” measures the Senate has failed to pass as a “Senate tax”, in justifying the tax increases in this budget.
Lukas Coch
The budget was extraordinary in many ways. It is an abandonment of restraint on taxes by a liberal government. It is nakedly populist and it also acknowledges that government debt can be productive.
Maybe this is why Trump doesn’t care for economists.
Charles Rex Arbogast/AP Photo
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s first major post-election economic speech revealed not a hint of awareness that large swathes of the electorate had been unpersuaded by his major policy programs.
Hawkers sell goods on the streets of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. Imports of bottled water from South Africa have been banned.
Reuters/Philimon Bulawayo
The control of imported goods is a quick fix that doesn’t resolve fundamental economic problems. It must be accompanied by a policy focus on macroeconomic issues, labour and agriculture.
Tony Abbott can rest assured he has made a lasting contribution to Australia’s future.
Lukas Coch/AAP
South Africa’s government should put more effort into developing concrete strategies for dealing with the factors preventing the removal of the critical constraints on economic growth.
Julius Malema, leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). He has openly questioned Nelson Mandela’s economic policy legacy.
Reuters/Skyler Reid
South African opposition politician Julius Malema has blamed economic policies put in place during Nelson Mandela’s era for the country’s high levels of inequality. He may have a point.
A view of Alexandra township, a slum overlooking the Sandton skyscrapers in Johannesburg. Addressing inequality has been a major challenge for South Africa.
Reuters/Juda Ngwenya
Will Thomas Piketty’s visit to South Africa trigger the rewriting of the country’s recent economic history? His analysis and ideas on how to address inequality are hard to ignore.
The main strategy of Modi’s economic advisers in the first year has been to treat the Indian economy as the proverbial elephant in the room.
Xing Zhe CHINA OUT/EPA/AAP
Mindful of the short attention span of voters, Modi’s economic advisers have been careful to avoid selling economic policy as the answer to India’s problems.
Australia’s GST is considered a regressive tax, so the idea of extending it to fresh food is considered unfair. A more detailed analysis reveals it’s not that simple.
Charlotte90T/Flickr
With the federal government’s review of taxation about to get underway, many are expecting Australia’s Goods and Services Tax to be up for change. In this GST series we take a closer look at the evidence…
How many Osbornes does it take to change an economic outlook?
Anthony Devlin/PA Wire
An opinion poll taken in the wake of George Osborne’s Autumn statement reveals that just 27% of people think the British economy is in good shape. This was a decline compared to a survey taken just three…
From St Petersburg to Brisbane. The G20 leaders are expected to cover a lot of territory.
Sergei Karpukhin/EPA/AAP
Suppose that on the evening of November 16, the G20 leaders release a 25-page communique with hundreds of recommendations on global health, security, climate change, human rights etc. Would this be regarded…
Distinguished Professor and Derek Schrier and Cecily Cameron Chair in Development Economics, School of Economics and Business Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand