IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecmode/v28y2011i3p1291-1302.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Industry structure and labor market flexibility in the South African manufacturing sector: A time series and panel data approach

Author

Listed:
  • Fedderke, Johannes W.
  • Hill, Andrew J.

Abstract

This paper presents a joint analysis of labor market flexibility and product market structure. Our investigation confirms earlier results of imperfect competition in South African manufacturing where we find an average mark-up of 50% for the period 1970 to 2004 that is without consistent trend over time. The contribution of the paper is to provide a theoretically grounded means of linking output market conduct to labor market flexibility. We infer the proportion of labor associated with rigidities in the labor market from the mark-up, and find that two thirds of total labor employed in South African manufacturing is associated with rigidities. We find that this proportion falls during the 1980s and rises during the 1990s, suggesting an increase in labor flexibility followed by a decrease.

Suggested Citation

  • Fedderke, Johannes W. & Hill, Andrew J., 2011. "Industry structure and labor market flexibility in the South African manufacturing sector: A time series and panel data approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 1291-1302, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:28:y:2011:i:3:p:1291-1302
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264-9993(11)00009-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Abhijit Banerjee & Sebastian Galiani & Jim Levinsohn & Zoë McLaren & Ingrid Woolard, 2008. "Why has unemployment risen in the New South Africa?1," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 16(4), pages 715-740, October.
    2. Ramaele Moshoeshoe, 2016. "Birth order effects on education attainment and child labour: Evidence from Lesotho," Working Papers 93, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    3. Pesaran, M. H. & Shin, Y. & Smith, R. J., 1996. "Testing for the 'Existence of a Long-run Relationship'," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 9622, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    4. Morne Oosthuizen & Haroon Bhorat, 2005. "The Post-Apartheid South African Labour Market," Working Papers 05093, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    5. Olivier Blanchard & Francesco Giavazzi, 2003. "Macroeconomic Effects of Regulation and Deregulation in Goods and Labor Markets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 879-907.
    6. Swamy, P A V B, 1970. "Efficient Inference in a Random Coefficient Regression Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 38(2), pages 311-323, March.
    7. S. Dobbelaere, 2003. "Joint Estimation of Price-Cost Margins and Union Bargaining Power for Belgian Manufacturing," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 03/171, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    8. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Smith, Ron, 1995. "Estimating long-run relationships from dynamic heterogeneous panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 79-113, July.
    9. Hausman, Jerry, 2015. "Specification tests in econometrics," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 38(2), pages 112-134.
    10. Johannes Fedderke & Chandana Kularatne & Martine Mariotti, 2007. "Mark-up Pricing in South African Industry," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 16(1), pages 28-69, January.
    11. Geeta Gandhi Kingdon & John Knight, 2006. "How Flexible are Wages in Response to Local Unemployment in South Africa?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 59(3), pages 471-495, April.
    12. Philippe Aghion & Matias Braun & Johannes Fedderke, 2008. "Competition and productivity growth in South Africa," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 16(4), pages 741-768, October.
    13. M. Hashem Pesaran & Yongcheol Shin & Richard J. Smith, 2001. "Bounds testing approaches to the analysis of level relationships," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(3), pages 289-326.
    14. Steven Dunaway & Lamin Leigh & Xiangming Li, 2009. "How Robust Are Estimates Of Equilibrium Real Exchange Rates: The Case Of China," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(3), pages 361-375, August.
    15. R. L. Hall & C. J. Hitch, 1939. "Price Theory And Business Behaviour," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 0(1), pages 12-45.
    16. B. T. McCallum, 1970. "The Effect of Demand on Prices in British Manufacturing: Another View," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 37(1), pages 147-156.
    17. Rulof Burger & Ingrid Woolard, 2005. "The State of the Labour Market in South Africa after the First Decade of Democracy," SALDRU/CSSR Working Papers 133, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    18. Basu, Susanto, 1995. "Intermediate Goods and Business Cycles: Implications for Productivity and Welfare," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 512-531, June.
    19. Joaquim Oliveira Martins & Stefano Scarpetta, 1999. "The Levels and Cyclical Behaviour of Mark-ups Across Countries and Market Structures," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 213, OECD Publishing.
    20. Johannes Fedderke, 2004. "Investment in Fixed Capital Stock: Testing for the Impact of Sectoral and Systemic Uncertainty," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 66(2), pages 165-187, May.
    21. Cheng Hsiao, 1997. "Cointegration and Dynamic Simultaneous Equations Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(3), pages 647-670, May.
    22. J. Fedderke & P. Vaze, 2004. "Response To Rangasamy And Harmse: Trade Liberalisation In The 1990s," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 72(2), pages 407-412, June.
    23. J.W. Fedderke & E. Schaling, 2005. "Modelling Inflation In South Africa: A Multivariate Cointegration Analysis," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 73(1), pages 79-92, March.
    24. repec:crs:wpaper:9645 is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Bughin, Jacques, 1996. "Trade Unions and Firms' Product Market Power," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(3), pages 289-307, September.
    26. Schroeter, John R, 1988. "Estimating the Degree of Market Power in the Beef Packing Industry," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 70(1), pages 158-162, February.
    27. L. Rangasamy & C. Harmse, 2003. "The Extent Of Trade Liberalisation In The 1990s: Revisited," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 71(4), pages 705-728, December.
    28. Damien J. Neven & Lars-Hendrik Röller & Zhentang Zhang, 2002. "Endogenous Costs and Price-Cost Margins," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 294, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    29. Roeger, Werner, 1995. "Can Imperfect Competition Explain the Difference between Primal and Dual Productivity Measures? Estimates for U.S. Manufacturing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(2), pages 316-330, April.
    30. Hirofumi Uzawa, 1962. "Production Functions with Constant Elasticities of Substitution," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 29(4), pages 291-299.
    31. JW Fedderke & Martine Mariotti, 2002. "Changing Labour Market Conditions In South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 70(5), pages 830-864, June.
    32. Martin Wittenberg, 2002. "Job Search In South Africa: A Nonparametric Analysis," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 70(8), pages 1163-1196, December.
    33. Lawrence Edwards, 2005. "Has South Africa Liberalised Its Trade?," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 73(4), pages 754-775, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Johannes W. Fedderke & Daniel K. Mengisteab, 2017. "Estimating South Africa's Output Gap and Potential Growth Rate," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 85(2), pages 161-177, June.
    2. Johannes Fedderke & Nonso Obikili & Nicola Viegi, 2018. "Markups and Concentration in South African Manufacturing Sectors: An Analysis with Administrative Data," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 86(S1), pages 120-140, January.
    3. Gupta, Rangan & Steinbach, Rudi, 2013. "A DSGE-VAR model for forecasting key South African macroeconomic variables," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 19-33.
    4. Erten, Bilge & Leight, Jessica & Tregenna, Fiona, 2019. "Trade liberalization and local labor market adjustment in South Africa," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 448-467.
    5. Johannes Fedderke, 2012. "The Cost of Rigidity: The Case of the South African Labor Market," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 54(4), pages 809-842, December.
    6. Joshua Budlender, 2019. "Markups and market structure in South Africa: What can be learnt from new administrative data?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-58, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    7. Johannes Fedderke & Nonso Obikili & Nicola Viegi, 2018. "Markups and Concentration in South African Manufacturing Sectors: An Analysis with Administrative Data," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 86(S1), pages 120-140, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Philippe Aghion & Matias Braun & Johannes Fedderke, 2008. "Competition and productivity growth in South Africa," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 16(4), pages 741-768, October.
    2. Fedderke, Johannes & Szalontai, Gábor, 2009. "Industry concentration in South African manufacturing industry: Trends and consequences, 1972-96," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 241-250, January.
    3. Philippe Aghion & Johannes Fedderke & Peter Howitt & Nicola Viegi, 2013. "Testing creative destruction in an opening economy," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 21(3), pages 419-450, July.
    4. Chandana Kularatne & Johannes W. Fedderke & Nicola Viegi & Peter W. Howitt & Philippe Aghion, 2008. "Testing creative destruction in an opening economy: the case of the South African manufacturing industries," Working Papers 093, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    5. Johannes Fedderke & Yang Liu, 2018. "Inflation in South Africa: An Assessment of Alternative Inflation Models," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 86(2), pages 197-230, June.
    6. Fedderke, Johannes W., 2018. "Exploring unbalanced growth: Understanding the sectoral structure of the South African economy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 177-189.
    7. Dobbelaere, Sabien, 2004. "Estimation of price-cost margins and union bargaining power for Belgian manufacturing," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 22(10), pages 1381-1398, December.
    8. Johannes Fedderke & Chandana Kularatne & Martine Mariotti, 2007. "Mark-up Pricing in South African Industry," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 16(1), pages 28-69, January.
    9. Johannes Fedderke, 2012. "The Cost of Rigidity: The Case of the South African Labor Market," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 54(4), pages 809-842, December.
    10. Stan du Plessis & Nico Katzke & Evan Gilbert & Chris Hart, 2015. "Mark-ups and competition: a comparison of the profitability of listed South African industrial companies," Working Papers 02/2015, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    11. Salman Ahmad & Attiya Yasmin Javid, 2015. "Analysing the Price Cost Markup and Its Behaviour over the Business Cycles in Case of Manufacturing Industries of Pakistan," PIDE-Working Papers 2015:117, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    12. Vincent Dadam & Nicola Viegi, 2021. "Estimating a New Keynesian Wage Phillips Curve," Working Papers 202107, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    13. Sabien Dobbelaere & Jacques Mairesse, 2013. "Panel data estimates of the production function and product and labor market imperfections," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(1), pages 1-46, January.
    14. Erten, Bilge & Leight, Jessica & Tregenna, Fiona, 2019. "Trade liberalization and local labor market adjustment in South Africa," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 448-467.
    15. Johannes W. Fedderke & Yang Liu, 2017. "Schumpeterian and semi-endogenous productivity growth explanations," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 25(1), pages 111-137, January.
    16. Nir Klein, 2011. "South Africa: The Cyclical Behavior of the Markups and its Implications for Monetary Policy," IMF Working Papers 2011/204, International Monetary Fund.
    17. S. Dobbelaere, 2003. "Joint Estimation of Price-Cost Margins and Union Bargaining Power for Belgian Manufacturing," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 03/171, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    18. Yongcheol Shin & Ron P Smith & Mohammad Hashem Pesaran, 1998. "Pooled Mean Group Estimation of Dynamic Heterogeneous Panels," Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series 16, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh.
    19. Fedderke, Johannes & Klitgaard, Robert, 2013. "How Much Do Rights Matter?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 187-206.
    20. Johannes Fedderke & Dietmar Naumann, 2011. "An analysis of industry concentration in South African manufacturing, 1972-2001," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(22), pages 2919-2939.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Mark-up Industry structure Labor market flexibility;

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • J29 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Other
    • J69 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Other
    • L60 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:28:y:2011:i:3:p:1291-1302. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/30411 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.