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SAGA PUBLICATIONS Included here are Working Papers and Conference Papers. Publications on this page are organized by author: RETURN TO MAIN AUTHORS PAGE Peters, Pauline E. Rural Income and Poverty in a Time of Radical Change in Malawi February 2006 Peters, Pauline E. Malawi is one of the poorest countries in Africa. There is widespread, though not universal, agreement about the shape of poverty in the country and the policy challenge this sets. Agriculture continues to be the most obvious means to stimulate broad-based rural growth and to provide levels of food security and income needed for the majority rural population. A longitudinal study over a decade during which radical policy and political changes occurred provides the data and basis for discussing the appropriate policy directions for reducing poverty. In Journal of Development Studies 42(2): 322-345, 2006 In Understanding and Reducing Persistent Poverty in Africa, Christopher Barrett, Peter Little, Michael Carter (eds.), Routledge, 2007. Phele, Thandi Industrial Strategy and local economic development: manufacturing policy and technological capabilities in Ekurhulen October 2004 Thandi Phele, Simon Roberts and Ian Steuart Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality is one of six metropolitan municipalities created in major urban concentrations. More importantly, it covers the largest industrial concentration in South Africa and in sub-Saharan Africa. The economy of Ekurhuleni reflects the apartheid legacy of minerals-oriented industrialisation, and the growth of an urban labour pool to supply the mines. Ekurhuleni grew on the back of the main concentration of gold mining in the country. This is reflected in the structure of manufacturing. Ekurhuleni accounted for 37 per cent of South African output of machinery and 33 per cent of metal products in 1996, with major markets for each historically being mining.2 The performance of the Ekurhuleni economy has, however, been very poor in recent years and, with the decline in gold mining, unemployment increased sharply to reach 40 per cent in 2002.3 Manufacturing in Ekurhuleni recorded an average annual growth of va lue-added of just 0.4 per cent between 1997 and 2002 (much lower than the national manufacturing annual growth of 2.3 per cent). Regeneration of the industrial base is thus crucial to addressing unemployment and poverty in the region. This paper examines the impact of national developments and policies on the development of industry in Ekurhuleni. It assesses role of local government in industrial development in light of recent literature addressing agglomeration effects, industrial districts, and the deve lopment of local economic competencies and institutions. The analysis draws on recent work on the manufacturing sector in Ekurhuleni and a case study of the foundry industry in particular, focusing on its performance and recent development in terms of firm capabilities, orientation, and the institutional framework. Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa Piesse, Jennifer Financial Development, Political Institutions and Economic Growth in the ECOWAS Sub-Region: An Empirical Analysis July 2004 George A. Dampare and Jennifer Piesse The enormous cross-country differences in economic development and growth in recent years, have led to a resurgence of research interest in the determinants of economic growth, a subject which has been extensively debated. The resultant literature contains competing explanations of economic development and growth and the notable ones are the roles of institutions (Easterly and Levine, 2003; and Rodrik et al 2002), importance of geography, culture and history (Acemoglu et al. 2001) and quality of macroeconomic policies (Frankel and Romer, 1999; Aryeetey and Fosu, 2002; and Berg and Krueger, 2003). A common characteristic of the series of research papers that have examined this issue is that they relate to a combination of developed and developing countries. Interestingly, the results have been very persuasive, but not conclusive and this characterizes the issue as one of continuous research importance. Presented at the ISSER-University of Ghana-Cornell University International Conference on "Ghana at the Half Century," July 18-20, 2004, Accra, Ghana Pirouz, Farah Have labour market outcomes affected household structure in South Africa? A preliminary descriptive analysis of households October 2004 Farah Pirouz In this paper we comprehensively examine household size and structures in the October Household Survey 1995, 1997, 1999 and the Labour Force Survey September 2001 and 2002. Over the 1995-2002 period, the average household size has decreased significantly, by 0.4 household members. A rising share of single households from 12.6% to 21% of all households mostly drives this result. We investigate the question of how such changes in the patterns of household composition could be correlated to changes in labour force participation rates, unemployment rates, and employment rates. We further trace the distribution of unemployment andemployment over South African households over time. The shares of workless households where no member is employed, and full employment households, where all working age adult members earn income from work, tell about employment polarisation. Not surprisingly, the share of households with unemployed members has doubled to 27% in 2002. Findings may also provide explanations for why rising household inequality and household poverty are observed. Given the absence of a comprehensive social security net, a rising number of workless households in which no member earns work income may explain an increase in inequality measures over the same period. The paper aims to be a starting point for further econometric investigation on how households’ demography is influenced by individual labour market outcomes and vice versa. Therefore the explorations are general and the argumentation follows several avenues. To further explore household dynamics in conjunction with labour forcedynamics, panel data is required. In South Africa, panel data is limited to a two-wave survey of African households in KwaZulu-Natal (KIDS). The Labour Force Survey is designed as a rotating panel, and Statistics SA is still in the process of matching household and individual observations. Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa Place, Frank Welfare Dynamics in Rural Kenya and Madagascar February 2006 Barrett, Christopher B., Paswel Phiri Marenya, John McPeak, Bart Minten, Festus Murithi, Willis Oluoch-Kosura, Frank Place, Jean Claude Randrianarisoa, Jhon Rasambainarivo and Justine Wangila This paper presents comparative qualitative and quantitative evidence from rural Kenya and Madagascar in an attempt to untangle the causality behind persistent poverty. We find striking differences in welfare dynamics depending on whether one uses total income, including stochastic terms and inevitable measurement error, or the predictable, structural component of income based on a household’s asset holdings. Our results suggest the existence of multiple dynamic asset and structural income equilibria, consistent with the poverty traps hypothesis. Furthermore, we find supporting evidence of locally increasing returns to assets and of risk management behaviour consistent with poor households' defence of a critical asset threshold through asset smoothing. In Journal of Development Studies 42(2): 248-277, 2006 In Understanding and Reducing Persistent Poverty in Africa, Christopher Barrett, Peter Little, Michael Carter (eds.), Routledge, 2007. Indices and Manifestations of Poverty: Informing Anti-Poverty Policy Choices March 2004 Willis Oluoch-Kosura, Paswel P. Marenya, Frank Place and Christopher B. Barrett Kenya has entered the 21st century with over 50% of its population classified as absolutely poor in that they live on less than a dollar a day. Per capita income is lower than at the end of the 1960’s. Income, assets, and access to essential services are unequally distributed. The country has made important economic reforms, improving macroeconomic management, liberalizing markets and trade, and widening the scope for private sector activity in the hope of improving economic growth and welfare for Kenyans. Yet, despite these reforms the country has experienced little growth and poverty continues to afflict an ever-larger segment of its citizenry, especially in rural areas. Presented at the KIPPRA-Cornell-SAGA Workshop on "Qualitative and Quantitative Methods for Poverty Analysis," March 11, 2004, Nairobi, Kenya Pörtner, Claus C. Adult Literacy Programmes in Ghana: An Evaluation June 2004 Niels-Hugo Blunch and Claus C. Pörtner This paper examines the effect of adult literacy program participation on household consumption in Ghana. We find that in most cases there is no significant effect on consumption from participation after allowing for self-selection into the program. For households where no adults have completed any formal education there is, however, a substantial positive and statistically significant effect on household consumption, pointing towards the potential importance of adult literacy programs for the parts of the population which have not participated in the formal education system. Possible explanations for why adult literacy program participation does not seem to significantly affect households where some formal education has been attained are explored, as well. Presented at the ISSER-University of Ghana-Cornell University International Conference on "Ghana at the Half Century," July 18-20, 2004, Accra, Ghana Posel, Dorrit Internal Labour Migration and Household Poverty in Post-Apartheid South Africa October 2005 Posel, Dorrit and Daniela Casale The first objective of this chapter is to briefly describe and discuss trends in labour migration over the period 1993 to 2002 using these household survey data. We show that a growing number of rural African households report labour migrants as (non-resident) household members and we discuss possible reasons why individuals may continue to migrate temporarily to places of employment. Our second objective is to explore the economic status of those who remain behind in the household of origin. We find that total household income on average is significantly and consistently lower in migrant, than in non-migrant, households. Remittance transfers are a more important source of income than the earnings of employed resident members in migrant households. Since 1993, however, both the receipt and the average real value of remittance income have fallen. We conclude our study with a discussion of factors that may account for this trend and the possible development implications of migration for rural African households. In Poverty and Policy in Post Apartheid South Africa, edited by Haroon Bhorat and Ravi Kanbur. Cape Town, South Africa: HSRC Press, 2006. Labour migration and households: a reconsideration of the effects of the social pension on labour supply in South Africa September 2004 Dorrit Posel, James Fairburn and Frances Lund This paper re-examines the effect of the South African social pension on the labour supply of working-age adults using data from 1993. We take account of the fact that households may include non-resident members, and therefore that the pension may play a role in facilitating migration to work or look for work. We find that rural African women are significantly more likely to be migrant workers when they are members of a household in receipt of a pension, and that it is female pension income that drives this result. We explore a number of possible reasons why pension income might have this effect. Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa "Two million net new jobs": A reconsideration of the rise in employment in South Africa, 1995-2003 April 2004 Daniela Casale, Colette Muller and Dorrit Posel In this paper we investigate labour market trends in South Africa between October 1995 and March 2003. In particular, we evaluate the South African government’s claim that over this period, the economy created two million net new jobs. Using the same household survey data as that used to generate official employment estimates, we also find an almost two million net increase in employment. However, we show that this increase is likely to have been inflated by changes in data capture and definitions of employment over the years, and that the real increase may be considerably less, with a lower bound of approximately 1.4 million jobs. We argue further that the rise in employment over the period must be evaluated in the context of a dramatically larger growth in labour supply and therefore rising rates of unemployment, declining real earnings, and an increase in the number of the working poor, particularly among Africans. Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa Poswell, Laura Measuring Recent Changes in South African Inequality and Poverty Using 1996 and 2001 Census Data October 2005 Leibbrandt, Murray, Laura Poswell, Pranushka Naidoo, Matthew Welch and Ingrid Woolard The paper analyses poverty and inequality changes in South Africa for the period 1996 to 2001 using Census data. To gain a broader picture of wellbeing in South Africa, both income-based and access-based measurement approaches are employed. At the national level, findings from the income-based approach show that inequality has unambiguously increased from 1996 to 2001. As regards population group inequality, within-group inequality has increased; while between-group inequality has decreased (inequality has also increased in each province and across the rural/urban divide). The poverty analysis reveals that poverty has worsened in the nation, particularly for Africans. Provincially, the Eastern Cape and Limpopo have the highest poverty rates while the Western Cape and Gauteng have the lowest poverty rates. Poverty differs across the urban-rural divide with rural areas being relatively worse off than urban areas. However, due to the large extent of rural-urban migration, the proportion of the poor in rural areas is declining. The access-based approach focuses on type of dwelling, access to water, energy for lighting, energy for cooking, sanitation and refuse removal. The data reveal significant improvements in these access measures between 1996 and 2001. The proportion of households occupying traditional dwellings has decreased while the proportion of households occupying formal dwellings has risen slightly (approximately two-thirds of households occupy formal dwellings). Access to basic services has improved, especially with regard to access to electricity for lighting and access to telephones. On a provincial level, Limpopo and the Eastern Cape display the poorest performance in terms of access to basic services. The paper concludes by contrasting the measured changes in well being that emerge from the income and access approaches. While income measures show worsening well being via increases in income poverty and inequality, access measures show that well being in South Africa has improved in a number of important dimensions. In Poverty and Policy in Post Apartheid South Africa, edited by Haroon Bhorat and Ravi Kanbur. Cape Town, South Africa: HSRC Press, 2006. Return to MAIN AUTHORS PAGE

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