The possible effects of the extended lockdown period on the South African economy : a CGE analysis

The economic effects of the lockdown period in South Africa will be devastating. We simulated the industry level capacity constraints imposed by the lockdown regulations since 27 March 2020 on all industries in South Africa by reducing the amount of capital and labour available for production. We found a decrease in real GDP to 10% below the baseline level in 2020, and recovery of all industries and macroeconomic variables towards the baseline by 2027. Industries that are suffering and would continue to suffer are the hospitality and tourism industry and all industries related to it, such as transport services, as well as beverages and tobacco. Manufacturing in general is also hard hit because they were prohibited to let large groups of labourers enter their premises. The model shows that most manufacturing will suffer throughout the forecast period, which was modelled up to 2027.http://wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/saje2022-11-08hj2022Economic

The dividends from a revenue neutral tax on coal in South Africa

South Africa is endowed with a significant proportion of the world's coal reserves, which is used relatively cheaply to supply in more than 75 per cent of the country's energy needs. In terms of its per capita South Africa is one of the largest air polluters in the world. Even higher on the list of social preferences in South Africa, however, is the problem of unemployment, which also ranks amongst the highest in the world. In this paper we use a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model to simulate fiscal policy scenarios that address both these problems, and try to establish a "double dividend", namely a reduction in CO2 levels of pollution as well as a reduction in unemployment levels

Constructing a CGE database using GEMPACK for an African country

This paper describes how we transformed the 2002 Ugandan Supply Use Table (SUT) into the required structure of a database for the static UgandanCGEmodel Dixon et al. (ORANI: A multisectoral model of the Australian economy, 1982). We describe the unique features captured in the Ugandan SUT as well as that of the CGE database. We highlight the structural differences of the published data and that of the CGE database. In describing the SUT we identify data issues, such as negative capital rentals and omitted data entries that had to be addressed before the database could be constructed. The ideas put forward in this paper describe, in a pragmatic manner, not only how to transform published data into a CGE database, but also how to create an additional sector in the CGE database. For the Ugandan CGE database, we created an additional Oil sector.http://link.springer.com/journal/106142016-12-31hb2016Economic

DogOnt - Ontology Modeling for Intelligent Domotic Environments

Abstract. Home automation has recently gained a new momentum thanks to the ever-increasing commercial availability of domotic components. In this context, researchers are working to provide interoperation mechanisms and to add intelligence on top of them. For supporting intelligent behaviors, house modeling is an essential requirement to understand current and future house states and to possibly drive more complex actions. In this paper we propose a new house modeling ontology designed to fit real world domotic system capabilities and to support interoperation between currently available and future solutions. Taking advantage of technologies developed in the context of the Semantic Web, the DogOnt ontology supports device/network independent description of houses, including both “controllable ” and architectural elements. States and functionalities are automatically associated to the modeled elements through proper inheritance mechanisms and by means of properly defined SWRL auto-completion rules which ease the modeling process, while automatic device recognition is achieved through classification reasoning.

Water resource accounting for Uganda : use and policy relevancy

This paper uses the system of economic and environmental accounting for water to demonstrate how the water sector interacts with the social-economic sectors of the economy. Furthermore, it reviews the existing institutional and policy framework in Uganda, and proposes an analytical framework which can be used to provide sound intersectoral planning in order to achieve sustainable water resource use. The proposed framework also articulates how outcomes of water policies and social-economic policies can be analyzed. In Uganda, the uneven distribution of water resources both in space and time, poses constraints to economic activity particularly in the water-scarce regions of the country. The problem is being exacerbated by the increasingly erratic rainfall and rising temperatures. The accounting results show that the current level of water use within the economy is less than the available quantity. In this regard, there is room for the development of mechanisms to increase its utilization. This would serve to mitigate the scarcity especially of water for production which primarily emanates from climate variability. This in turn affects the performance of the economy, as key sectors such as agriculture are rainfall-dependent.The Carnegie Corporation of New York under the Next Generation of African Academics (NGAA II) project, and Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA).http://www.iwaponline.com2016-08-31hb2016Economic

The welfare effects of reversed border tax adjustments as a remedy under unilateral environmental taxation : a South African case study

Border Tax Adjustments (BTAs) resurfaced recently in national policy debates as a possible measure to counter the anti-competitiveness effect of unilateral environmental taxes. There seems to be no consensus in the literature on the effectiveness of BTAs under environmental taxes. This paper aims firstly to provide a theoretical Heckscher-Ohlin analysis that not only challenges the effectiveness of BTAs, but also proposes an alternative approach to mitigate the welfare effects of environmental taxes. Secondly, the paper evaluate the effectiveness of the alternative approach, to negate the economic impact on competitiveness of an electricity generation tax, without sacrificing the environmental benefits of the tax, in the case of South Africa. Using conventional Heckscher-Ohlin methodology, in a small country, we show that policy makers should, instead of implementing BTAs, consider the opposite of BTAs to mitigate the welfare effects of environmental taxes. We show that gains from trade, due to a reduction in import tariffs, could, under certain assumptions, offset the initial tax induced welfare loss. The paper then applies the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model to evaluate the impact of an electricity generation tax on the South African, SACU and SADC economies and explores the possibility to reduce the economic impact of the electricity generation tax through traditional border tax adjustments. The results show that an electricity generation tax will lead to a contraction of the South African gross domestic product. However, traditional BTAs are unable to address these negative impacts. The paper then test the proposed reversed BTA approach where gains from trade are utilised to negate the negative impacts of an electricity generation tax, while retaining the environmental benefits associated with the electricity generation tax. This is achieved through a reduction in import tariffs, as this reduction will reduce production costs and thereby restore the competitiveness of South Africa. The reduction in import tariffs not only negates the negative GDP impact of the electricity generation tax, but most the CO2 abatement from the electricity generation tax is retained.http://www.multi-science.co.uk/ee.htmhb2017Economic

Hybrid Decays

The heavy quark expansion of Quantum Chromodynamics and the strong coupling flux tube picture of nonperturbative glue are employed to develop the phenomenology of hybrid meson decays. The decay mechanism explicitly couples gluonic degrees of freedom to the pair produced quarks and hence does not obey the well known, but model-dependent, selection rule which states that hybrids do not decay to pairs of L=0 mesons. However, the nonperturbative nature of gluonic excitations in the flux tube picture leads to a new selection rule: light hybrids do not decay to pairs of identical mesons. New features of the model are highlighted and partial widths are presented for several low lying hybrid states.Comment: 13 pages, 1 table, revte

The impact of the 2014 platinum mining strike in South Africa : an economy-wide analysis

In this paper we measure the economy-wide impact of the 2014 labour strike in South Africa's platinum industry. The strike lasted 5 months, ending in June 2014 when producers reached an agreement with the main labour unions. The immediate impacts on local mining towns were particularly severe, but our research shows that the strike could also have long lasting negative impacts on the South African economy as a whole. We find that it is not the higher nominal wages itself that caused the most damage, but the possible reaction by investors in the mining industry towards South Africa. Investor confidence is likely to be, at least, temporarily harmed, in which case it would take many years for the effects of the strike to disappear.We conduct our analysis using a dynamic CGE model of South Africa.http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecmod2016-12-31hb201

Postural and gait symptoms in de novo Parkinson's disease patients correlate with cholinergic white matter pathology

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An economy-wide evaluation of new power generation in South Africa : the case of Medupi and Kusile

This paper investigates the role that the building of two new power stations, Medupi and Kusile, will play in facilitating future economic activity in South Africa. We use a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to estimate the economy-wide effects of these new power stations. Our simulation results also provide insight into how much the local economy has lost due to inadequate electricity supply in the period leading up to the construction of Medupi and Kusile. We find that the decision to build additional power generation capacity was necessary and justified, and that the failure to sooner recognise the need for expansion of the country’s electricity generation capacity and subsequent delays in commissioning Medupi and Kusile, likely cost the economy over R110bn in lost production. Additional analysis, in which a further two-year delay in the construction of Medupi and Kusile is simulated, shows that such an event will cause the economy to perform below baseline projections up to 2022.Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA)http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol2017-10-31hb2016Economic