Purpose This study aims to investigate the impact of social grants on rural household welfare in a village located in one of the poorest provinces in South Africa – KwaZulu Natal Province. Actually, since the inception of democratic rule, the South African government has turned to social grants to address the issues of poverty, income inequality and to improve household welfare. The coverage of social grants has increased substantially with more than 17 million (about 34% of the population) South Africans being recipients of social grants. Despite having relatively well-developed social security system, poverty levels in rural parts of South Africa remains very high. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a cross-sectional households survey data conducted in Hlokozi village. A propensity score matching technique, which accounts for non-random selection of households, is applied. Findings The results reveal that social grants have a significant and positive impact on rural household welfare. Specifically, the nearest neighbour matching estimates suggest that the causal effect for social grants on household welfare is the region of about R5,830. Consistent with the nearest neighbouring method, the results obtained using the Kernel matching method show that social grants are significant in improving rural household welfare. Originality/value While there are a number of studies that have shed some light on how social grant reduces poverty in South Africa, there are some gaps. Firstly, only a few studies have interrogated the impact of social grants on household welfare. Secondly, most of these studies have relied on descriptive analysis, and finally, besides poverty being high in rural areas, research on the impact of social grants on rural household welfare remains thin.

The issue of gender wage discrimination and women empowerment has gained a great deal of local and international attention. However, gender-based discrimination persists worldwide, depriving women of their basic rights and opportunities. Affirmative action policies have been adopted by many countries around the world as a means to address these inequalities in employment and education while promoting diversity, and redressing historical wrongdoings. Despite some progress made worldwide, however, gender wage disparities remain particularly high in South Africa. Hence, the question remains about whether these affirmative action measures have yet to achieve their intended effects. This study investigates the trends in gender wage disparities by occupation before and after the introduction of affirmative action measures. By conducting an empirical analysis within the South African context, we examine gender wage discrimination within the Affirmative Action Framework, employing a Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition model for the years 1997 and 2015, the period for which data are available. The study employs the Post Apartheid Labor Market Series (PALMS) which synchronizes important labor market variables derived from the October Household Surveys, the Labor Force Surveys and the Quarterly Labor Force Surveys. The results of the kernel density function, OLS regression and Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition analyses suggest that the estimated differences in earnings between males and females for the full sample fell significantly during the period in question. Reassuringly, disaggregating the sample by occupation yields similar estimates obtained in the full sample – decrease in estimated differences in earnings between males and females. This surprising result should, however, not entirely be interpreted as a decline in discrimination per se, but also an increase in the productive characteristics of females over time. It is also interesting to observe that in some occupations (professionals and clerks) the explained component enters with a negative sign, implying that females in these occupations have better labor market features than their male counterparts. However, the persistence of gender earnings inequality, especially at certain occupational levels, driven by discrimination and other non-productive factors, suggest the need for an adjustments and structural reforms in the current affirmative action policies in order to deal with gender earnings inequality at various levels.

Despite having relatively well-developed social security system, poverty levels in rural parts of South Africa remains very high. This study employs a cross-sectional households’ survey data conducted in Hlokozi village (located in one of the poorest provinces in South Africa – Kwazulu Natal Province) and propensity score matching technique (which accounts for nonrandom selection of households) to investigate the impact of social grants on rural household welfare. The results reveal that social grants have a significant and positive impact on rural household welfare. Specifically, the nearest neighbour matching estimates suggest that the causal effect for social grants on household welfare is the region of about R 5830. Consistent with the nearest neighbouring method, the results obtained using Kernel matching method shows that social grants are significant in improving rural household welfare. Our finding seem to lend credence to the conclusion of previous studies that social grants (conditional or unconditional) help in the way of lifting households out of poverty and improve their welfare. Thus rural areas (traditional rural areas) should continue to be a chief focus of poverty alleviation efforts in South Africa.

Abstract We empirically investigates the factors that affect Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows in five BRICS countries for the period 1990–2015. We address the selection bias and unobserved heterogeneity by estimating a panel Heckman selection method and attempts to account for both selection and endogeneity within the new two-stage method. After addressing the above mentioned econometric issues, the infrastructure and GDP per capita variables under the new two-stage method remain positive and significantly similar to the coefficient of infrastructure and GDP per capita under the panel Heckman selection model. In addition, the inverse Mills ratio maintain its level of statistical significance, confirming the presence of both sample selection bias and endogeneity.

This paper studies the determinants of economic growth for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries over the period of 1995-2011. A Fixed effect Vector Decomposition estimator (FEVD), which allows the estimation of the coefficient of the time-invariant and account for unobserved heterogeneity is employed to estimate the determinants of economic growth. The analysis also applies a Fixed Effects Two-Stage Least Squares estimator (FE-2SLS) to account for a possible endogeneity bias due to reverse causation between economic growth and government spending or other forms of endogeneity problem. Using the Fixed effect Vector Decomposition estimator we find that democracy, education – measured by enrolment rate, government expenditure, foreign direct investment, trade openness have the expected positive impact on economic growth. The results seem to hold fairly well when endogeneity of government spending is taken into account— the signs or directions of the above-mentioned estimated coefficients remain in line with our benchmark results. Keywords: Endogeneity, Bias, economic growth, unobserved heterogeneity, FE-Two Stage Least Squares Fixed effect Vector Decomposition JEL Classifications: N17; O11; C26; H56

This paper employs a newly-available and representative National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) data of South African households to investigate whether social grants crowd-out or displace remittances. The estimated results based on full sample reveal that while the social grants have a negative impact on the amount of remittances received, the effect is statistically insignificant – social grants do not crowd out or displace remittances. The coefficient on the social grant is also insignificant in both sub-samples (rural and urban), consistent with the results on the full sample