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This book offers a comprehensive empirical analysis of South African inflation dynamics, using a variety of techniques including counterfactual analysis. The authors elaborate the roles in inflation of thresholds, nonlinearities and asymmetries introduced by economic conditions such as the size of exchange rate changes and volatility, GDP growth, inflation, output gap, credit growth, sovereign spreads and fiscal policy, providing new policy evidence on the impact of these. Ndou and Gumata apply techniques to determine the prevalence of updating inflation expectations, and reconsider the propagation effects of a number of inflation risk factors. Asking to what extent the evidence points to a need to enforce price stability and the anchoring of inflation expectation, the book fills existing gaps in South African Policy, and maintains a clear argument that price stability is consistent with the 3 to 6 per cent inflation target range, and that threshold application should form an important aspect of policy analysis in periods of macroeconomic uncertainty. As such, the book serves as an excellent reference text for academic and policy discussions alike.
The perception that inflation dynamics in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are driven by supply shocks implies a limited role for monetary policy in influencing inflation in the short run. SSA’s rapid growth, its integration with the global economy, changes in the policy frameworks, among others, in the last decade suggest that the drivers of inflation may have changed. We quantitatively analyze inflation dynamics in SSA using a Global VAR model, which incorporates trade and financial linkages among economies, as well as the role of regional and global demand and inflationary spillovers. We find that in the past 25 years, the main drivers of inflation have been domestic supply shocks and shocks to exchange rate and monetary variables; but that, in recent years, the contribution of these shocks to inflation has fallen. Domestic demand pressures as well as global shocks, and particularly shocks to output, however, have played a larger role in driving inflation over the last decade. We also show that country characteristics matter—the extent of oil and food imports, vulnerability to weather shocks, economic importance of agriculture, trade openness and policy regime, among others, help in explaining the role of shocks.
This Selected Issues paper for South Africa presents a quantitative analysis of inflation dynamics in the country. The conduct of monetary policy has been complicated by a variety of unanticipated events that have had important effects on inflation. Exposed to exchange rate and other shocks, the model confirms that a delayed policy response to inflation shocks leads to persistently higher inflation rates and, subsequently, to a sharp real contraction of the economy.
The study looks at the cyclical behavior of the markups and assesses its impact on inflation dynamics. The analysis finds that the aggregate level of the private sector's markup is relatively high, thus pointing to the lack of strong competition in South Africa's product markets. Additionally, the results suggest that the markups tend to move in a countercyclical manner, with a short-term positive impact on inflation. This implies that the countercyclical pattern of the markups is one factor among others that contribute to the relatively weak output gap-inflation co-movement. In the context of South Africa's inflation targeting framework, the counter-cyclical markups may also generate an asymmetric response of monetary policy to the fluctuations in economic activity.
This book explores the macro-financial effects of central bank balance sheets, macro-prudential tools, and financial regulation in South Africa. How employment can be maximised while keeping inflation low and stable is examined in relation to the structural changes required to alter the composition of South African bank balance sheets. Quantitative methods and approaches are utilised to highlight the impact of suggested policies. This book aims to outline strategies and policy interventions that can help achieve the National Development Plan in South Africa. It will be of interest to researchers and policymakers working within development economics, African economics, development finance, and financial policy.
This book focuses on income inequality, output-inflation trade-off and economic policy uncertainty in South Africa. Tight monetary and macroprudential policies raise income inequality. Income inequality transmits monetary policy and macroprudential policy shocks to real economic activity. Economic policy uncertainty influences the dynamics in the lending rate margins, inflation expectations, credit, pass-through of the repo rate to bank lending rates and companies’ cash holdings. The trade-off between output and inflation and output growth persistence vary with inflation regimes. Stimulatory demand policy shocks are less effective in high inflation regime. High income inequality raises consumption inequality, which raises demand for credit, but price stability matters in this link. Increased bank concentration raises income inequality, lowers economic growth and employment rate. Elevated economic policy uncertainty lowers output growth, lowers capital formation, reduces credit and raises companies’ cash holdings. Increased companies’ cash holdings reduce capital formation and impact the transmission of expansionary monetary policy shocks to real economic activity. This book shows there is an inflation level within the target band below it which lowers income inequality, while raising GDP growth and employment. Thus price stability, economic policy uncertainty and income inequality matter for the efficient transmission of policy shocks.
The South African Reserve Bank has continued to fulfill its constitutional mandate to protect the value of the local currency by keeping inflation low and steady. This paper provides evidence that monetary policy tightening aimed at maintaining low and stable inflation could at the same time reduce consumption inequality over a 12–18 month horizon, commonly understood as the transmission lag of monetary policy action to the real economy, and similar to the distance between survey waves used in the analysis. In response to “exogenous” monetary policy tightening, the real consumption of individuals at lower ends of the consumption distribution declines relatively modestly, or even increases. With greater reliance on government transfers, thus smaller reliance on labor income, and relatively larger food consumption, these individuals appear to benefit mainly from lower inflation. By contrast, the real consumption of individuals at higher ends of the consumption distribution is more likely to decline due to lower labor income, weaker asset price performance, and higher debt service cost.