Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-p2v8j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-04T06:02:48.023Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Comparative Analysis of South Africa as a Semi-Industrialised Developing Country

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

South Africa has neither a developed nor a typical underdeveloped economy. Too often it has been wrongly classified, along with, say, Australia and New Zealand, as one of the peripheral developed countries, because only a part of the economy and population have the characteristics we associate with that group. Yet its economy is distinctly different from others in sub-Saharan Africa. South Africa falls squarely into the category which the World Bank classifies as ‘upper middle-income’ developing economies, with G.N.P. per capita in 1982 ranging from $2,000 to $7,000 and averaging $2,500, thereby including South Africa, with $2,700.1 (By contrast, Kenya's G.N.P. per capita was $400 and Britain's $10,000). The World Bank's group includes Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, South Korea, Venezuela, and Yugoslavia. South Africa shares many structural economic characteristics with these semi-industrialised countries.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Page 473 note 1 World Bank, World Development Report, 1984 (Washington, D.C., 1984), p. 219.Google Scholar

Page 474 note 1 For instance, Cohen, Robin, Endgame in South Africa? The Changing Structures and Ideology of Apartheid (London and Paris, 1986).Google Scholar

Page 475 note 1 World Bank, op. cit. More instructive comparisons can be made for the period prior to 1982 because the trends are less disturbed by the recent recession. However, the data published in the World Development Report, 1988 (Washington, D.C., 1988) show South Africa in an even poorer light compared with other countries for the period 1980–1986. The arguments of this article would apply a fortiori.

Page 476 note 1 Source: World Development Report, 1984, tables 2 and 19.

Page 477 note 1 The 1970–1980 comparison is based on the 1980 boundaries of South Africa and excludes the Homelands of Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda, and Ciskei (T.B.V.C.). The decision of the Statistics Department to redefine the nest each time a fledgling drops out of it has been a menace, sometimes a disaster, for serious statistical analysis.

Page 477 note 2 Nedbank Group, South Africa: an appraisal, (Johannesburg, 1983), citing Human Sciences Research Council (H.S.R.C.) projections.

Page 477 note 3 South African Reserve Bank, Quarterly Bulletin (Pretoria), various issues.

Page 478 note 1 Sources: ibid. and Central Statistical Services, Bulletin of Statistics (Pretoria), various issues.

Page 479 note 1 Source: Reserve Bank, op. cit.

Page 479 note 2 Stephen Lewis, ‘Economics and Apartheid: the impact of South Africa's economic policies’, figure 2.5, typescript.

Page 480 note 1 Sources: Central Statistical Services, South African Statistics (Pretoria), various issues, and Reserve Bank, op. cit.Google Scholar

Page 480 note 2 The debate has been well surveyed and assessed in Lipton, Merle, Capitalism and Apartheid: South Africa, 1910–84 (Aldershot, 1985).Google Scholar

Page 482 note 1 Source: World Development Report, 1984, Table 21.

Page 482 note 2 See Knight, J. B., ‘Labour Allocation and Unemployment in South Africa’, in Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 41, 2, 1978, pp. 117–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 482 note 3 Ibid.

Page 483 note 1 Cited in Nedbank Group, op. cit. p. 36.

Page 483 note 2 For instance, Gerson, J., ‘The Question of Structural Unemployment in South Africa’ in South Africa Journal of Economics (Johannesburg), 49, 1, 1981, pp. 1025.Google Scholar

Page 483 note 3 For instance, Maree, Johann, ‘The Dimensions and Causes of Unemployment and Underemployment in South Africa’, in South African Labour Bulletin (Durban), 4, 4, 07 1978, pp. 1550.Google Scholar

Page 483 note 4 Knight, J. B., ‘The Nature of Unemployment in South Africa’ in South Africa Journal of Economics, 50, 1, 1982, pp. 112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 483 note 5 Knight, , ‘Labour Allocation’, loc. cit. pp. 93–130.Google Scholar

Page 484 note 1 For instance, Knight, J. B., ‘Black Wages and Choice of Techniques in South Africa,’ in Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 41, 2, 1979, PP. 117–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 484 note 2 Gelb, Alan, Knight, J. B., and Sabot, R. H., ‘Lewis Through a Looking Glass: public sector employment, rent-seeking and economic growth’, Washington, D.C., 1987.Google Scholar

Page 484 note 3 World Bank, Yugoslavia: adjustment policies and development (Washington, D.C., 1983).Google Scholar

Page 484 note 4 Gelb, Knight, and Sabot, op. cit.

Page 485 note 1 Source: World Development Report, 1984, table 22.

Page 485 note 2 Hindson, Doug, ‘Alternative Urbanisation Strategies in South Africa: a critical evaluation’, Conference on the Southern African Economy after Apartheid, York, 1986.Google Scholar

Page 485 note 3 Republic of South Africa, The White Paper on Urbanisation (Pretoria, 1986).

Page 486 note 1 Nattrass, Jill, ‘Removing Influx Control: a few predictions of consequence,’ in Indicator S.A. (Durban), 3, 2, 1985, pp. 14.Google Scholar

Page 487 note 1 Nedbank Group, op. cit. p. 35.

Page 488 note 1 Source: World Development Report, 1984, table 25. The South African figures for 1981 have been calculated from official sources.

Page 488 note 2 For instance, Knight, J. B. and Sabot, R. H., Educational Expansion, Productivity and Inequality: a comparative analysis of the East African natural experiment (Washington, D.C. and Oxford, 1989).Google Scholar

Page 489 note 1 Sources: Jain, Shail, Size Distribution of Income: a compilation of data (Washington, D.C., 1975), for Gini coefficients; World Development Report, 1984, table 28;Google ScholarMcGrath, M. D., ‘The Distribution of Personal Income in South Africa in Selected Years over the Period from 1945 to 1980,’, Ph.D. dissertation, Durban, 1983, table 53, for shares of the poorest 40 per cent.Google Scholar

Page 489 note 2 Jain, op. cit.

Page 490 note 1 McGrath, op. cit.

Page 490 note 2 Knight, J. B., ‘A Theory of Income Distribution in South Africa’, in Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, 27, 4, 1964, pp. 289310.Google Scholar

Page 491 note 1 Knight, J. B. and McGrath, M. D., ‘The Erosion of Apartheid in the South African Labour Market: measures and mechanisms’, Applied Economics Discussion Paper No. 35, Institute of Economics and Statistics, Oxford, 1987.Google Scholar

Page 492 note 1 Moll, T. C., ‘The Art of the Possible: macroeconomic policy and income redistribution in Latin America and in a future South Africa’, Conference on the Southern African Economy after Apartheid, York, 1986.Google Scholar

Page 492 note 2 Knight and Sabot, op. cit.