Abstract
We analyze the impact of inflation, growth and exchange rate on unemployment in South Africa using annual data spanning 1980- 2017. Using the ARDL methodology we find that there is a negative longrun relationship between inflation and unemployment in South Africa and inflation is significant in explaining unemployment. Other variables of interest, economic growth and exchange rate are also significant in explaining unemployment. We use the findings of our study to propose that the South African Reserve Bank(SARB) should consider revising its objectives so that they can consider getting involved in targeting unemployment so that they help nurse the economy from the wounds of high inequality and poverty.
Keywords
References
- Alexius, A. & Holmlund, B. (2007). Monetary Policy and Swedish Unemployment Fluctuations. Economics Discussion Paper No. 2007-34. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1716637 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1716637
- Blinder, A. S. (2000). Central-bank credibility: Why do we care? how do we build it? American Economic Review, 90(5), 1421-1431.
- Christiano, L. J., Eichenbaum, M. & Evans, C. L. (1999). Monetary policy shocks: What have we learned and to what end? Handbook of Macroeconomics, 1, 65-148.
- Daboussi, M. O. (2014). Economic performance and inflation targeting in developing economies. Journal of World and Research, 3(1), 1-7.
- Epstein, G. (2002). Employment-oriented central bank policy in an integrated world economy: A reform proposal for South Africa.
- Epstein, G. & Yeldan, E. (2006). Developing policy alternatives to inflation targeting, the new façade of neoliberal conditionality: an introduction, Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Amherst.
- Epstein, G. (2007). Central banks, inflation targeting and employment creation, International Labor Office
- Group, W. B. (2017). World Development Indicators 2017, World Bank.
- Kabundi, A. & Schaling, E. (2013). Inflation and inflation expectations in South Africa: an attempt at explanation. South African Journal of Economics, 81(3), 346-355.
- Leeper, E. M., Sims, C. A., Zha, T., Hall, R. E. & Bernanke, B. S. (1996). What does monetary policy do? Brookings papers on economic activity, (2), 1-78.
- Mboweni, T. (2003). African economic integration–keynote address at the 5th annual African development finance conference. South Africa. 9 October 2003.
- Ngalawa, H. P. (2009). paper presented at the 14th Annual Conference of the African Econometric Society, 8-10 July 2009. Dynamic effects of monetary policy shocks in Malawi, Abuja, Nigeria.
- Parsley, D. C. (2012). Exchange rate pass-through in South Africa: Panel evidence from individual goods and services. Journal of Development Studies, 48(7), 832-846.
- Pesaran, M. H., Shin, Y. & Smith, R. J. (1996). Testing for the Existence of a Long-run Relationship, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
- Pesaran, M. H., Shin, Y. & Smith, R. P. (1999). Pooled mean group estimation of dynamic heterogeneous panels. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 94(446), 621-634.
- South African Reserve Bank (2016). Experience of Inflation targeting in S.A. SARB Quarterly Bulletin, (December 2016), 242-103.
- South African Reserve Bank. (2004). Financial stability review. SARB Working Paper WP/02/04. Pretoria: South Africa.
- Stats, SA. (2017). Quarterly labor force survey in South Africa, 2017 report, Pretoria, South Africa.
- Walsh, C. E. (2009). Inflation targeting: what have we learned? International Finance, 12(2), 195-233.
- World Bank. (2017). World development indicators, 2017 report, WDI56888, Volume 1. New York, USA.
Downloads
No downloads have been recorded for this article yet. Figures appear here once readers begin downloading the full text.
How to Cite
Share this article
License
Copyright (c) 2018 Harris Maduku, Irrshad Kaseeram (Author)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Author (s) should affirm that the material has not been published previously. It has not been submitted and it is not under consideration by any other journal. At the same time author (s) need to execute a publication permission agreement to assume the responsibility of the submitted content and any omissions and errors therein. After submission of revised paper in the light of suggestions of the reviewers, the editorial team edits and formats manuscripts to bring uniformity and standardization in published material.
This work will be licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) and under condition of the license, users are free to read, copy, remix, transform, redistribute, download, print, search or link to the full texts of articles and even build upon their work as long as they credit the author for the original work. Moreover, as per journal policy author (s) hold and retain copyrights without any restrictions.
Keywords
Section
Published in
Vol. 10 No. 4(J) (2018)
Enterprise, Macroeconomics & Development in Africa
View issue contents
Published
Submissions
Have research to publish? Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies welcomes submissions.
Make a Submission