Habiyaremye Alexis, Molewa Olebogeng, Lekomanyane Pelontle
Human Sciences Research Council, Merchant House, 116-118 Buitengracht Street, Cape Town, 8001 South Africa.
Eur J Dev Res. 2022;34(1):540-567. doi: 10.1057/s41287-021-00400-5. Epub 2021 Apr 16.
For the economic recovery in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic, South Africa announced the launch of an ambitious ZAR 2.3 trillion infrastructure investment plan. This paper uses a simplified yet reliable method to analyse the potential growth and employment effects of this stimulus plan. Based on lower and upper bound values of the country's estimated fiscal multipliers, we built a scenario prediction template with which output and employment expansion can be analysed within specified constraints on the fiscal space and the country's economic dynamics. Our estimation model suggests that with a 50% state participation in the recovery investment, the best case scenario of fiscal stimulation would enable the economy to create 2.23 million jobs over the first 5 years of the stimulus investments (of which 1.74 million would be attributed to the stimulus effect), while the more realistic scenario based of the lower bound value of the fiscal multiplier with only 30% state participation predicts the creation of 1.67 million additional jobs, of which 1.18 million would be attributable to the stimulus. Our analysis also suggests that investing in the types of infrastructure that shift the production technology could change the long-term growth trajectory, while focusing on employment-intensive investment may only generate temporary effects.
为实现新冠疫情后的经济复苏，南非宣布启动一项规模达2.3万亿兰特的雄心勃勃的基础设施投资计划。本文采用一种简化但可靠的方法来分析该刺激计划的潜在增长和就业效应。基于该国估计财政乘数的下限和上限值，我们构建了一个情景预测模板，利用该模板可以在财政空间和国家经济动态的特定约束范围内分析产出和就业扩张情况。我们的估计模型表明，若国家在复苏投资中参与度为50%，财政刺激的最佳情景将使经济在刺激投资的头5年创造223万个就业岗位（其中174万个将归因于刺激效应），而基于财政乘数下限值且国家参与度仅为30%的更现实情景预测将创造167万个额外就业岗位，其中118万个可归因于刺激措施。我们的分析还表明，投资于能够改变生产技术的基础设施类型可能会改变长期增长轨迹，而专注于就业密集型投资可能只会产生短期效应。
