Living Standards In South Africa’s Former Homelands

I exploit the sudden increase in employment in 1975, 1976 and 1977 in some former homelands by comparing the long term adult physical outcomes of children benefitting from the employment increase to those not subject to it. Using a standard difference in difference approach I find that there was some malnutrition in the homelands resulting in stunting in African men born during the shock providing support to the foetal origins hypothesis. The employment shock did not affect other long term outcomes such as education and general health, although there is some evidence of an improvement in long term health. This study provides previously unmeasured individual level information on the quality of life in the homelands during apartheid, an era when African living standards were neglected but unmeasured because of a lack of data collection.

Labor Markets in South Africa During Apartheid

Conventional wisdom holds that international political pressure and domestic civil unrest in the mid-1970s and 1980s brought an end to apartheid in South Africa. I show that, prior to these events, labor market pressure in the late 1960s/early 1970s caused a dramatic unraveling of apartheid in the workplace. Increased educational attainment among whites reduced resistance to opening semi-skilled jobs to Africans. This institutional change reflected white economic preferences rather than a relaxation of attitudes toward apartheid. I show that whites benefited from the relaxation of job reservation rules and that this is the primary cause of black occupational advancement.Discrimination; Job Reservation; Education; Labor markets

Bounds on the Return to Education in Australia using Ability Bias

We estimate the average return to education and the ability bias applying a parametric model of intra-household correlation suggested by Card (1999, 2001) to the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey. Using the subsample of dual-earner households, we obtain an average return to education of 5.5% and an ability bias of 19%. Our paper is also the first to provide informative inference results on ability bias. We extrapolate the ability bias estimate from dual-earner households to the whole sample. Using Manski's (1989) nonparametric no assumptions bounds to partially identify the ability bias for the whole sample, we find that ability bias lies between 9% and 63%. This implies an average return to education of between 3.0% and 7.4% for the whole sample. Our estimates are conservative and compare well to other estimates of the average return to education which typically lie to the right of that interval.

Living standards in South Africa's former homelands

I exploit the sudden increase in employment in 1975, 1976 and 1977 in some former homelands by comparing the long term adult physical outcomes of children benefitting from the employment increase to those not subject to it. Using a standard difference in difference approach I find that there was some malnutrition in the homelands resulting in stunting in African men born during the shock providing support to the foetal origins hypothesis. The employment shock did not affect other long term outcomes such as education and general health, although there is some evidence of an improvement in long term health. This study provides previously unmeasured individual level information on the quality of life in the homelands during apartheid, an era when African living standards were neglected but unmeasured because of a lack of data collection

Mark-up Pricing in South African Industry

This paper investigates the extent of the mark-up of the South African manufacturing sector, taking into account a number of characteristics of its component industries. We find significant mark-ups to be present in the South African manufacturing industry. In comparative terms, the mark-up is approximately twice that found for the US manufacturing sector. We find that industry concentration exerts a positive influence on the mark-up over marginal cost whilst an indicator of competitiveness suggests that an increase in an industry's competitiveness relative to other industries allows it to raise its mark-up. However, within-industry increases in competitiveness reduces the mark-up. We also analyze the impact of import and export penetration. Both import and export penetration serve to lower the mark-up. The impact of the business cycle on mark-up indicates that the mark-up is countercyclical. Finally, accounting for intermediate inputs significantly lowers the absolute size of the mark-up, controlling for the industry's concentration ratio. However, relative to findings on the US manufacturing sectors, SA manufacturing mark-ups remain approximately twice as large.

Labor Markets in South Africa During Apartheid

Conventional wisdom holds that international political pressure and domestic civil unrest in the mid-1970s and 1980s brought an end to apartheid in South Africa. I show that, prior to these events, labor market pressure in the late 1960s/early 1970s caused a dramatic unraveling of apartheid in the workplace. Increased educational attainment among whites reduced resistance to opening semi-skilled jobs to Africans. This institutional change reflected white economic preferences rather than a relaxation of attitudes toward apartheid. I show that whites benefited from the relaxation of job reservation rules and that this is the primary cause of black occupational advancement

Diacylated Sulfoglycolipids Are Novel Mycobacterial Antigens Stimulating CD1-restricted T Cells during Infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Mycobacterial lipids comprise a heterogeneous group of molecules capable of inducing T cell responses in humans. To identify novel antigenic lipids and increase our understanding of lipid-mediated immune responses, we established a panel of T cell clones with different lipid specificities. Using this approach we characterized a novel lipid antigen belonging to the group of diacylated sulfoglycolipids purified from Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The structure of this sulfoglycolipid was identified as 2-palmitoyl or 2-stearoyl-3-hydroxyphthioceranoyl-2′-sulfate-α-α′-d-trehalose (Ac2SGL). Its immunogenicity is dependent on the presence of the sulfate group and of the two fatty acids. Ac2SGL is mainly presented by CD1b molecules after internalization in a cellular compartment with low pH. Ac2SGL-specific T cells release interferon γ, efficiently recognize M. tuberculosis–infected cells, and kill intracellular bacteria. The presence of Ac2SGL-responsive T cells in vivo is strictly dependent on previous contact with M. tuberculosis, but independent from the development of clinically overt disease. These properties identify Ac2SGL as a promising candidate to be tested in novel vaccines against tuberculosis

Identification of genetic variants associated with Huntington's disease progression: a genome-wide association study

Background Huntington's disease is caused by a CAG repeat expansion in the huntingtin gene, HTT. Age at onset has been used as a quantitative phenotype in genetic analysis looking for Huntington's disease modifiers, but is hard to define and not always available. Therefore, we aimed to generate a novel measure of disease progression and to identify genetic markers associated with this progression measure. Methods We generated a progression score on the basis of principal component analysis of prospectively acquired longitudinal changes in motor, cognitive, and imaging measures in the 218 indivduals in the TRACK-HD cohort of Huntington's disease gene mutation carriers (data collected 2008–11). We generated a parallel progression score using data from 1773 previously genotyped participants from the European Huntington's Disease Network REGISTRY study of Huntington's disease mutation carriers (data collected 2003–13). We did a genome-wide association analyses in terms of progression for 216 TRACK-HD participants and 1773 REGISTRY participants, then a meta-analysis of these results was undertaken. Findings Longitudinal motor, cognitive, and imaging scores were correlated with each other in TRACK-HD participants, justifying use of a single, cross-domain measure of disease progression in both studies. The TRACK-HD and REGISTRY progression measures were correlated with each other (r=0·674), and with age at onset (TRACK-HD, r=0·315; REGISTRY, r=0·234). The meta-analysis of progression in TRACK-HD and REGISTRY gave a genome-wide significant signal (p=1·12 × 10−10) on chromosome 5 spanning three genes: MSH3, DHFR, and MTRNR2L2. The genes in this locus were associated with progression in TRACK-HD (MSH3 p=2·94 × 10−8 DHFR p=8·37 × 10−7 MTRNR2L2 p=2·15 × 10−9) and to a lesser extent in REGISTRY (MSH3 p=9·36 × 10−4 DHFR p=8·45 × 10−4 MTRNR2L2 p=1·20 × 10−3). The lead single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in TRACK-HD (rs557874766) was genome-wide significant in the meta-analysis (p=1·58 × 10−8), and encodes an aminoacid change (Pro67Ala) in MSH3. In TRACK-HD, each copy of the minor allele at this SNP was associated with a 0·4 units per year (95% CI 0·16–0·66) reduction in the rate of change of the Unified Huntington's Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS) Total Motor Score, and a reduction of 0·12 units per year (95% CI 0·06–0·18) in the rate of change of UHDRS Total Functional Capacity score. These associations remained significant after adjusting for age of onset. Interpretation The multidomain progression measure in TRACK-HD was associated with a functional variant that was genome-wide significant in our meta-analysis. The association in only 216 participants implies that the progression measure is a sensitive reflection of disease burden, that the effect size at this locus is large, or both. Knockout of Msh3 reduces somatic expansion in Huntington's disease mouse models, suggesting this mechanism as an area for future therapeutic investigation

Labour markets during apartheid in South Africa

Anecdotal evidence shows that despite extensive restrictions on the hiring of African workers, these workers were increasingly employed in semi-skilled occupations throughout the apartheid era. This article shows that White skill acquisition throughout the apartheid era reduced the supply of White semi-skilled workers and led to the removal of job reservation, the process of reserving skilled and semi-skilled jobs for Whites. Although job reservation declined, there is little evidence of a decline in racial segregation in the labour market. It is concluded that the transformation in the labour market was driven by White economic incentives rather than any evident change in White preferences regarding racial segregation