This article examines the importance and contribution of technological progress to aggregate econ... more This article examines the importance and contribution of technological progress to aggregate economic growth in South Africa. Being able to explain technological progress is imperative, considering the outcome of a simple growth accounting exercise, indicating that the contribution of technological growth to aggregate economic growth increased substantially, over the past four decades. Technological progress has ended up contributing 30% of the total economic growth during the 2000s. . In the past, South African models estimating economic growth assumed constant technological progress over time. As a result a large component of economic growth remained unexplained. In this investigation, economic growth is modelled through a Cobb-Douglas production function, employing Kalman filter technology to determine the evolution of the Solow residual over time. The Solow residual represents both technological progress and structural change. Isolating the contribution of technological progress...
Globally, the classification and ratings of universities are based mainly on an institution's... more Globally, the classification and ratings of universities are based mainly on an institution's research productivity. South Africa, especially in the last decade, has experienced an increasing skills shortage, making the need for new and appropriately qualified graduates a priority for the nation. A review in 1991 by Pouris examined the trends in the output of science and arts graduates at South African universities during 1984-88. His conclusion was that South Africa had no 'technological' or 'general' universities. The study reported here follows the same methods, but covers the period 2000-06. Conclusions are similar to before, even though the government's declared policy has been to produce more graduates in the sciences. We examine the policy implications of the current funding formula for universities and propose how the Department of Education could augment graduate numbers in the way desired. A key recommendation is revising the funding formulae and in...
This paper examines the South African economic sector's electricity consumption in response t... more This paper examines the South African economic sector's electricity consumption in response to fluctuations in electricity prices and economic output for the period 1993 to 2006. The results of the panel data analysis show that the industrial sector was the only one with statistically significant price elasticity over the study period. Further, economic output was a positive contributing factor to the industrial and commercial sectors (having high and significant coefficients). This is in contrast with the other three sectors, agriculture, transport and mining, whose electricity consumption was affected neither by price nor by their production.
The influence of the National Research Foundation’s (NRF) rating system on the productivity of th... more The influence of the National Research Foundation’s (NRF) rating system on the productivity of the South African social science researchers is investigated scientometrically for the period from 1981 to 2006. Their output performance is mainly indicated by their research publications. Following international best practice in scientometrics as well as the behavioural reinforcement theory, we employed the “before/after control impact (BACI)
In South Africa, water is considered a limited source, not only because of the country's arid... more In South Africa, water is considered a limited source, not only because of the country's arid nature, but also because of the relatively skew distribution of the resource and the fact that 98% of the resource is already allocated. Eskom, the South African electricity supplier, commenced with the construction of two new coal-fired power stations namely Kusile and Medupi. The question is: what is the opportunity cost of investing in these power stations from a water perspective? We do not argue here against the need for power plants and additional electricity generation capacity per se, but consider the opportunity cost of using this specific technology. We estimate the shadow price of water for different power generation technologies as an indicator of the opportunity cost of water. We apply a production function approach for a baseline case (coal-fired power generation using the Medupi and Kusile parameters), and four alternative technologies. The only alternative that performs ...
In this paper, we examine the effects of money supply, portfolio, aggregate spending, and aggrega... more In this paper, we examine the effects of money supply, portfolio, aggregate spending, and aggregate supply shocks on real US stock prices in a structural vector autoregression framework using quarterly data for the period of 1947:1-2011:3. Overall, the empirical results indicate that each macro shock has important effects on real stock prices, with aggregate supply shocks playing an important role, besides portfolio shocks. The real stock price impulse responses to the various macro shocks conform to the standard present-value equity valuation model, and hence, our identification based on long-run restrictions can be viewed as appropriate. An historical decomposition indicates that the decline in the real stock prices during the "Great Recession" is mainly due to a slowdown in US productivity, after investors had decided to carry out exogenous portfolio shifts out of stocks. In general, we conclude that during the "Great Recession" the declining stock prices resu...
This article examines the importance and contribution of technological progress to aggregate econ... more This article examines the importance and contribution of technological progress to aggregate economic growth in South Africa. Being able to explain technological progress is imperative, considering the outcome of a simple growth accounting exercise, indicating that the contribution of technological growth to aggregate economic growth increased substantially, over the past four decades. Technological progress has ended up contributing 30% of the total economic growth during the 2000s. . In the past, South African models estimating economic growth assumed constant technological progress over time. As a result a large component of economic growth remained unexplained. In this investigation, economic growth is modelled through a Cobb-Douglas production function, employing Kalman filter technology to determine the evolution of the Solow residual over time. The Solow residual represents both technological progress and structural change. Isolating the contribution of technological progress...
Globally, the classification and ratings of universities are based mainly on an institution's... more Globally, the classification and ratings of universities are based mainly on an institution's research productivity. South Africa, especially in the last decade, has experienced an increasing skills shortage, making the need for new and appropriately qualified graduates a priority for the nation. A review in 1991 by Pouris examined the trends in the output of science and arts graduates at South African universities during 1984-88. His conclusion was that South Africa had no 'technological' or 'general' universities. The study reported here follows the same methods, but covers the period 2000-06. Conclusions are similar to before, even though the government's declared policy has been to produce more graduates in the sciences. We examine the policy implications of the current funding formula for universities and propose how the Department of Education could augment graduate numbers in the way desired. A key recommendation is revising the funding formulae and in...
This paper examines the South African economic sector's electricity consumption in response t... more This paper examines the South African economic sector's electricity consumption in response to fluctuations in electricity prices and economic output for the period 1993 to 2006. The results of the panel data analysis show that the industrial sector was the only one with statistically significant price elasticity over the study period. Further, economic output was a positive contributing factor to the industrial and commercial sectors (having high and significant coefficients). This is in contrast with the other three sectors, agriculture, transport and mining, whose electricity consumption was affected neither by price nor by their production.
The influence of the National Research Foundation’s (NRF) rating system on the productivity of th... more The influence of the National Research Foundation’s (NRF) rating system on the productivity of the South African social science researchers is investigated scientometrically for the period from 1981 to 2006. Their output performance is mainly indicated by their research publications. Following international best practice in scientometrics as well as the behavioural reinforcement theory, we employed the “before/after control impact (BACI)
In South Africa, water is considered a limited source, not only because of the country's arid... more In South Africa, water is considered a limited source, not only because of the country's arid nature, but also because of the relatively skew distribution of the resource and the fact that 98% of the resource is already allocated. Eskom, the South African electricity supplier, commenced with the construction of two new coal-fired power stations namely Kusile and Medupi. The question is: what is the opportunity cost of investing in these power stations from a water perspective? We do not argue here against the need for power plants and additional electricity generation capacity per se, but consider the opportunity cost of using this specific technology. We estimate the shadow price of water for different power generation technologies as an indicator of the opportunity cost of water. We apply a production function approach for a baseline case (coal-fired power generation using the Medupi and Kusile parameters), and four alternative technologies. The only alternative that performs ...
In this paper, we examine the effects of money supply, portfolio, aggregate spending, and aggrega... more In this paper, we examine the effects of money supply, portfolio, aggregate spending, and aggregate supply shocks on real US stock prices in a structural vector autoregression framework using quarterly data for the period of 1947:1-2011:3. Overall, the empirical results indicate that each macro shock has important effects on real stock prices, with aggregate supply shocks playing an important role, besides portfolio shocks. The real stock price impulse responses to the various macro shocks conform to the standard present-value equity valuation model, and hence, our identification based on long-run restrictions can be viewed as appropriate. An historical decomposition indicates that the decline in the real stock prices during the "Great Recession" is mainly due to a slowdown in US productivity, after investors had decided to carry out exogenous portfolio shifts out of stocks. In general, we conclude that during the "Great Recession" the declining stock prices resu...
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Papers by Roula Inglesi-Lotz