Measuring Institutions: Indicators of Political and Economic Institutions in Namibia: 1884 - 2008

This paper presents a database on institutional measures for Namibia for the period 1884 to 2008. Using the techniques of principal components and factor analysis in aggregating these indicators, the study does two things. First, it illustrates a methodology for constructing de jure and de facto institutional measures by means of using pieces of legislation and quantitative data, respectively. Secondly, these indicators are used to assess the nature of political and economic institutional transformation from the colonial legacy to the modern outcome using Namibia as a natural experiment. The new indicators while covering a long time period (1884-2008), correlate fairly well with some of the widely used institutional indices produced by the Freedom House and the Heritage foundation.Namibia Institutional Indicators Political Freedom Property Rights Judicial Independence Political Instability

Alternative indices of political freedoms, property rights, and political instability for Zambia

This paper presents new institutional measures for Zambia. Coverage is of political rights and freedoms, of property rights, and of political instability. The sample period is from 1947 to 2007. Comparison of the indices with directly comparable Zimbabwean and Malawian series, shows strong sources of divergence in institutional conditions. The paper also considers interaction amongst the institutional measures, and between the institutional measures and measures of economic development. We find that there is an association among the institutional variables, with the various rights dimensions moving together, and being negatively associated with political instability. The evidence further suggests that the institutional measures are associated benevolently with economic development. In this sense the indicators of the present paper therefore conform to the precepts of the new institutional economicsInstitutions, Political freedom, Property rights, Political Instability and Zambia

Infrastructure and Growth in South Africa: Direct and Indirect Productivity Impacts of 19 Infrastructure Measures

Summary Empirical explorations of the growth and aggregate productivity impacts of infrastructure have been characterized by ambiguous (countervailing signs) results with little robustness. This paper, utilizing panel data for South African manufacturing over the 1970-2000 period, and a range of 19 infrastructure measures, explores the question of infrastructure endogeneity in output equations. The paper develops an instrumentation strategy generalizable to other contexts. Controlling for the possibility of endogeneity in the infrastructure measures renders the impact of infrastructure capital not only positive, but of economically meaningful magnitudes.growth productivity infrastructure Africa South Africa

MODELLING INFLATION IN SOUTH AFRICA: A MULTIVARIATE COINTEGRATION ANALYSIS

We employ an expectations augmented Phillips curve framework to investigate the link between inflation, unit labour costs, the output gap, the real exchange rate and inflation expectations. Using multivariate cointegration techniques, we find evidence consistent with mark-up behaviour of output prices over unit labour costs. Most importantly, we find that the mark-up in the South African economy is much higher than in the U.S. For South Africa we find a markup of about 30 per cent: three times as high as the 10 per cent markup found for the U.S. Copyright 2005 Economic Society of South Africa.

THE LINKS BETWEEN TRADE POLICY AND TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY IN SOUTH AFRICA'S MANUFACTURING SECTOR

This paper reconfirms the important links that exist between manufacturing productivity, trade orientation, industry specific characteristics and some macroeconomic variables. The dynamic GMM estimator used in the analysis shows that apart from being affected by trade measures, total factor productivity is strongly persistent. In addition, the evolution of the real exchange rate and inflation exert important effects on manufacturing productivity. Most importantly, the dynamic error component specification appears to be more efficient in modelling the effects on manufacturing productivity of policy change than the static approach. Copyright 2005 Economic Society of South Africa.