IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ldr/wpaper/57.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Inequality Traps in South Africa: An overview and research agenda

Author

Listed:
  • Miquel Pellicer

    (SALDRU, School of Economics, University of Cape Town)

  • Vimal Ranchhod

    (School of Economics, University of Cape Town)

  • Mare Sarr

    (School of Economics, University of Cape Town)

  • Eva Wegner

    (SALDRU, School of Economics, University of Cape Town)

Abstract

There has been considerable effort in ascertaining with confidence the trends in income inequality in South Africa. South Africa has traditionally been among the most unequal countries in the world and continues to be so. Surprisingly, levels of inequality have not decreased despite the transition to democratic rule in the 1990s; if any, they seem to have increased. There has also been considerable work on the proximate causes of these high levels of inequality on the basis of inequality decompositions (See Leibbrandt, Levinsohn and McCrary 2010, Leibbrandt. Woolard, Finn and Argent 2010, and Bhorat et al. 2009 for recent analyses). However, much less is known about the underlying causes of this high level of inequality and of its persistence.

Suggested Citation

  • Miquel Pellicer & Vimal Ranchhod & Mare Sarr & Eva Wegner, 2011. "Inequality Traps in South Africa: An overview and research agenda," SALDRU Working Papers 57, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    • Handle: RePEc:ldr:wpaper:57
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://opensaldru.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11090/60/2011_57.pdf?sequence=1
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kiminori Matsuyama, 2002. "The Rise of Mass Consumption Societies," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(5), pages 1035-1070, October.
    2. Ljungqvist, Lars, 1993. "Economic underdevelopment : The case of a missing market for human capital," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 219-239, April.
    3. Ghatak, Maitreesh & Nien-Huei Jiang, Neville, 2002. "A simple model of inequality, occupational choice, and development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 205-226, October.
    4. Cally Ardington & David Lam & Murray Leibbrandt & James Levinsohn, 2004. "Savings, Insurance And Debt Over The Post‐Apartheid Period: A Review Of Recent Research," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 72(3), pages 604-640, September.
    5. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2006. "Belief in a Just World and Redistributive Politics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(2), pages 699-746.
    6. Kiminori Matsuyama, 2000. "Endogenous Inequality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(4), pages 743-759.
    7. Dilip Mookherjee & Debraj Ray, 2003. "Persistent Inequality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 369-393.
    8. Banerjee, Abhijit V & Newman, Andrew F, 1993. "Occupational Choice and the Process of Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(2), pages 274-298, April.
    9. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2000. "Why Did the West Extend the Franchise? Democracy, Inequality, and Growth in Historical Perspective," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1167-1199.
    10. Roland Benabou, 2000. "Unequal Societies: Income Distribution and the Social Contract," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 96-129, March.
    11. Joan Esteban & Laurence Kranich, 2003. "The Social Contracts with Endogenous Sentiments," Working Papers 71, Barcelona School of Economics.
    12. Maoz, Yishay D & Moav, Omer, 1999. "Intergenerational Mobility and the Process of Development," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(458), pages 677-697, October.
    13. Oded Galor & Joseph Zeira, 1993. "Income Distribution and Macroeconomics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 35-52.
    14. Lindert,Peter H., 2009. "Growing Public," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521529174, September.
    15. Fernandez, Raquel & Rogerson, Richard, 1997. "Keeping People Out: Income Distribution, Zoning, and the Quality of Public Education," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 38(1), pages 23-42, February.
    16. Alberto F. Alesina & Paola Giuliano, 2009. "Preferences for Redistribution," NBER Working Papers 14825, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Servaas Van Der Berg & Megan Louw & Derek Yu, 2008. "Post‐Transition Poverty Trends Based On An Alternative Data Source1," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 76(1), pages 58-76, March.
    18. Benabou, Roland, 2005. "Inequality, Technology and the Social Contract," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 25, pages 1595-1638, Elsevier.
    19. Kiminori Matsuyama, 2000. "Financial Market Globalization and Endogenous Inequality of Nations," Discussion Papers 1300, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    20. Owen, Ann L. & Weil, David N., 1998. "Intergenerational earnings mobility, inequality and growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 71-104, February.
    21. Jeremy R. Magruder, 2010. "Intergenerational Networks, Unemployment, and Persistent Inequality in South Africa," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 62-85, January.
    22. Rachel Milstein Sondheimer & Donald P. Green, 2010. "Using Experiments to Estimate the Effects of Education on Voter Turnout," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 174-189, January.
    23. Stokes, Susan C., 2005. "Perverse Accountability: A Formal Model of Machine Politics with Evidence from Argentina," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 99(3), pages 315-325, August.
    24. Pellicer, Miquel, 2009. "Inequality persistence through vertical vs. horizontal coalitions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 258-266, November.
    25. Paul, Gilles Saint & Verdier, Thierry, 1996. "Inequality, redistribution and growth: A challenge to the conventional political economy approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-5), pages 719-728, April.
    26. Servaas van der Berg, 2009. "Fiscal incidence of social spending in South Africa, 2006," Working Papers 10/2009, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    27. Servaas Van Der Berg & Megan Louw, 2004. "Changing Patterns Of South African Income Distribution: Towards Time Series Estimates Of Distribution And Poverty1," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 72(3), pages 546-572, September.
    28. Meltzer, Allan H & Richard, Scott F, 1981. "A Rational Theory of the Size of Government," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 914-927, October.
    29. Murray Leibbrandt & Ingrid Woolard & Arden Finn & Jonathan Argent, 2010. "Trends in South African Income Distribution and Poverty since the Fall of Apartheid," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 101, OECD Publishing.
    30. Roland Benabou, 1993. "Workings of a City: Location, Education, and Production," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 619-652.
    31. Kiminori Matsuyama, 2005. "Emergent Class Structure," Discussion Papers 1407, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    32. Durlauf, Steven N, 1996. "A Theory of Persistent Income Inequality," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 75-93, March.
    33. Piketty, Thomas, 2000. "Theories of persistent inequality and intergenerational mobility," Handbook of Income Distribution, in: A.B. Atkinson & F. Bourguignon (ed.), Handbook of Income Distribution, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 8, pages 429-476, Elsevier.
    34. Demombynes, Gabriel & Ozler, Berk, 2005. "Crime and local inequality in South Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 265-292, April.
    35. Leibbrandt Murray & Levinsohn James A & McCrary Justin, 2010. "Incomes in South Africa after the Fall of Apartheid," Journal of Globalization and Development, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-62, January.
    36. François Bourguignon & Francisco Ferreira & Michael Walton, 2007. "Equity, efficiency and inequality traps: A research agenda," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 5(2), pages 235-256, August.
    37. Mani, Anandi, 2001. "Income Distribution and the Demand Constraint," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 6(2), pages 107-133, June.
    38. Derek Yu, 2010. "Poverty and inequality trends in South Africa using different survey data," Working Papers 04/2010, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    39. Thomas Piketty, 1997. "The Dynamics of the Wealth Distribution and the Interest Rate with Credit Rationing," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 64(2), pages 173-189.
    40. M Leibbrandt & I Woolard & H Bhorat, 2000. "Understanding Contemporary Household Inequality in South Africa," Studies in Economics and Econometrics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 31-51, November.
    41. International Monetary Fund, 2003. "Income Inequality and Redistributive Government Spending," IMF Working Papers 2003/014, International Monetary Fund.
    42. Branko Milanovic, 2003. "The median voter hypothesis, income inequality and income," HEW 0305001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    43. Cally Ardington & David Lam & Murray Leibbrandt & Matthew Welch, 2005. "The Sensitivity of Estimates of Post-Apartheid Changes in South African Poverty and Inequality to key Data Imputations," SALDRU/CSSR Working Papers 106, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.
    44. Harms, Philipp & Zink, Stefan, 2003. "Limits to redistribution in a democracy: a survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 651-668, November.
    45. Haroon Bhorat & Carlene van der Westhuizen & Toughedah Jacobs, 2009. "Income and Non-Income Inequality in Post-Apartheid South Africa: What are the Drivers and Possible Policy Interventions?," Working Papers 09138, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    46. Servaas van der Berg, 2010. "Current poverty and income distribution in the context of South African history," Working Papers 22/2010, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    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. Miquel Pellicer & Eva Wegner & Lindsay Benstead & Harold Kincaid & Ellen Lust & Juanita Vasquez, 2014. "The demand side of clientelism: The role of client's perceptions and values," SALDRU Working Papers 140, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, University of Cape Town.

    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. Oded Galor, 2009. "Inequality and Economic Development: An Overview," Working Papers 2009-3, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    2. Oded, Galor, 2011. "Inequality, Human Capital Formation, and the Process of Development," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 441-493, Elsevier.
    3. Dilip Mookherjee & Debraj Ray, 2003. "Persistent Inequality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(2), pages 369-393.
    4. Asli Demirgüç-Kunt & Ross Levine, 2009. "Finance and Inequality: Theory and Evidence," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 287-318, November.
    5. Ryo Arawatari & Tetsuo Ono, 2015. "Inequality, Mobility and Redistributive Taxation in a Finance-Constrained Economy," Applied Economics and Finance, Redfame publishing, vol. 2(4), pages 143-159, November.
    6. Mookherjee, Dilip & Napel, Stefan, 2021. "Welfare rationales for conditionality of cash transfers," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    7. Alston, Lee J. & Melo, Marcus Andre & Mueller, Bernardo & Pereira, Carlos, 2013. "Changing social contracts: Beliefs and dissipative inclusion in Brazil," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 48-65.
    8. Das, Mausumi, 2007. "Persistent inequality: An explanation based on limited parental altruism," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 251-270, September.
    9. Mookherjee, Dilip & Napel, Stefan, 2007. "Intergenerational mobility and macroeconomic history dependence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 49-78, November.
    10. Falilou Fall, 2005. "Endogenous persistent inequality," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00196084, HAL.
    11. Shankha Chakraborty & Mausumi Das, 2005. "Mortality, Human Capital and Persistent Inequality," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 159-192, June.
    12. Henry Ohlsson & Jesper Roine & Daniel Waldenstrom, 2006. "Long-Run Changes in the Concentration of Wealth: An Overview of Recent Findings," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2006-103, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    13. Vincenzo Lombardo, 2008. "Income distribution and Growth: A Critical Survey," Working Papers 11_2008, D.E.S. (Department of Economic Studies), University of Naples "Parthenope", Italy.
    14. Joan Esteban & Debraj Ray, 2006. "Inequality, Lobbying, and Resource Allocation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 257-279, March.
    15. Koichiro Sano & Yasunobu Tomoda, 2019. "Persistent income gaps in an occupational choice model with multi‐goods," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(1), pages 1-20, March.
    16. Christophe Ehrhart, 2009. "The effects of inequality on growth: a survey of the theoretical and empirical literature," Working Papers 107, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    17. Azariadis, Costas & Stachurski, John, 2005. "Poverty Traps," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 5, Elsevier.
    18. Benabou, Roland, 2005. "Inequality, Technology and the Social Contract," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 25, pages 1595-1638, Elsevier.
    19. Gabrieli, Tommaso, 2012. "Inequality, Intergenerational Mobility and Redistributive Policies under Endogenous Information," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 23-49.
    20. Debasis Bandyopadhyay & Xueli Tang, 2011. "Parental nurturing and adverse effects of redistribution," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 71-98, March.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ldr:wpaper:57. 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: Alison Siljeur (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sauctza.html .

    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.