Academic Wits Research Outputs (All submissions)
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Browsing Academic Wits Research Outputs (All submissions) by Faculty "Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management"
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Item A Wealth Tax for South Africa(Southern Centre for Inquality Studies (SCIS), 2018-01) Terreblanche, SampieItem A Wealth Tax for South Africa(Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2021-01) Chatterjee, Aroop; Czajka, Léo; Gethin, AmoryThis paper considers the feasibility of implementing a progressive wealth tax to collect additional government revenue to both reinforce fiscal sustainability in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis and reduce persistent extreme inequality in South Africa. Drawing on our new companion paper, we first identify the tax base and discuss the design of potential tax schedules. Testing alternative tax schedules, we estimate how much additional revenue could be collected from a progressive tax on the top 1% richest South Africans. Our results show that under conservative assumptions, a wealth tax could raise between 70 and 160 billion Rands—1.5% to 3.5% of the South African GDP.We discuss in turn how sensitive our estimates are to assumptions on (1) mismeasurement of wealth and (2) tax avoidance and evasion, based on the most recent tax policy literature. We examine technical issues related to the enforcement of the tax, and how third-party reporting and pre-filled declarations could be used to optimize measurement of taxable wealth and minimize evasion and avoidance opportunities. Finally, we explain how this new tax could interact with other capital related taxes already in place in South Africa, and discuss the potential impact on growth.Item Addressing Constraints to South Africa’s Agriculture Inclusiveness(Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2021-09) Sihlobo, Wandile; Qobo, MzukisiSouth Africa’s agriculture remains dualistic, with large scale commercial farmers who are predominately white and small-scale and subsistence farmers that are mainly black. These disparities in fortunes result from the long history of segregation policies and apartheid. The efforts to build an inclusive agricultural sector through the upliftment of black farmers by the new democratic government since 1994 have failed. As such, black farmers in South Africa still constitute between 5 and 10 per cent of the overall commercial production. We explore the constraints to inclusive growth drive in the agricultural and agribusiness sector and offer recommendations for improvement. These include a need for increased efficiency at the local government for ensuring service delivery to farming towns, blended finance instruments for funding farmer development, and the prioritization of private-public-partnership approaches for farmer development and land reform projects. We frame the interventions for the post-COVID-19 dispensation, focusing on the potential role of agriculture in fostering inclusion and supporting rural economies and employment.Item Adjudicating affirmative action within a normative framework of substantive equality and the Employment Equity Act – an opportunity missed?(Juta and Co, 2015) Albertyn, CatherineThe development of a constitutionally informed legal standard to test employment equity plans and affirmative action measures will always be troubled in a country that has seen racial classification serve as the basis for oppression and subordination, and now seeks to use it in achieving a ‘non-racial’ democracy. Contestation over how to secure redress, restitution and substantive equality are inevitable. The Barnard judgment demonstrates a common commitment to restitution and transformation, and, indeed, a common outcome. However, between that commitment and the outcome lie important differences in philosophical and legal approaches to equality, to s 9 of the Constitution and s 6 of the Act (and the relationship between them), to the standard of justification for positive measures and to the need for courts to engage substantively with crucial issues in our democracy. In this case-note, after setting out the case history and judgments in some detail, I explore the contrasting ideas of equality that underpin the different approaches to positive measures and discuss which is best suited to our constitutional project. I then suggest how this normative framework can inform the adjudication of employment equity plans and affirmative action measures under the Employment Equity Act. No single judgment in Barnard achieves this.Item Beyond a Treasury View of the World: Reflections from Theory and History on Heterodox Economic Policy Options for South Africa(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2018-05) Padayachee, VishnuItem Black Economic Empowerment Transactions in South Africa after 1994(Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2021-04) Gqubule, DumaThis paper reviews the implementation of policies to deracialise ownership within the Top 50 JSE listed companies with a focus on mining and finance which accounted for 75% of black ownership within these companies at the end of December 2020. It looks at the context in which the policies were implemented – the performance of the economy and the restructuring of apartheid era conglomerates since 1994 that created opportunities for BEE companies. The paper then evaluates the three waves of BEE transactions over the past 27 years and the failures of the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) policy framework, which included the BEE Codes of Good Practice and sector charters in mining and finance. The paper discusses the confusing maze of statistics on black ownership and presents its own findings. The paper argues that prospects for further transformation of apartheid ownership structures are not good, with the economy likely to experience a second lost decade in terms of economic development until 2030, and due to policy design failures that have provided weak incentives for companies to enter into replacement BEE transactions.Item Black Economic Empowerment in the Automotive Manufacturing Industry: A Case for Productive Capacity Development Transformation(Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2021-09) Mashilo, Alex Mohubetswane; Moothilal, RenaiThe automotive manufacturing industry has received little, if any, sustained academic attention on Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) or Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE). Most of the work is in the form of news capturing the reactions of industry role players, especially the lead firms in the automotive value chains, to BEE or BBBEE regulatory changes, and individual lead firms’ transformation initiatives. This working paper represents a modest attempt at laying the basis for a sustained focus on BBBEE in the automotive manufacturing industry, the mainstay of South Africa’s manufacturing base. We argue for a production development and industrial transformation approach, with the objectives of deepening and widening domestic value addition as part of localisation, and increasing employment with greater attention on expanding, diversifying and growing the lower tiers of the supplier base – the second and third-tiers.Item Brazil Colonial Legacy and Growth Patterns(Southern Centre for Inequality Studies ISCIS), 2023-07-12) Lena, Lavinas; Domingues, José Maurício; Gonçalves, Guilherme Leite; Cordilha, Ana Carolina; Bedê, Francisco; Bressan, Lucas; Constantino, João Paulo; Rubin, PedroThis paper provides a very concise view of the trajectory of Brazil since it became a republic. It goes through the 20th century and into the 21st century to systematize how the different phases of economic development reproduced and reformatted the inequalities inherited from the country´s colonial-slave period. Its objective is to provide a timeline, framed by the structural transformations in the economy and in the political regime, which has shifted between democratic and authoritarian periods, always with a strong role for the State. In addition to characterizing the industrial accumulation pattern of what was dubbed "developmentalism", and the rupture with this pattern caused by the financialization of the economy, in the midst of the democratization process of the country, starting in the mid-1980s, the paper briefly describes how the social question evolved over time and how the oligarchic power structures remained dominant in the state apparatus and in the political system.Item Capital and Politics: Links and Distance During the Bolsonaro Government(Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2023-07-19) Bedê, Francisco; Domingues, José Maurício; Herz, Mônica; Gonçalves, Guilherme Leite; Rodríguez, Maria ElenaThe present article analyses the relation between the state and the political system, on the one side, and capital and capitalists, on the other, in Brazil, especially under the Bolsonaro government. Using data about the boards of directors of Brazil’s main companies and of the main government ministries, it brings out what amounts to an indirect relation between the two sides of this equation. It mobilizes both theoretical and empirical arguments in order to point to the idea of political dimension and political processes as a possible path to apprehend the more complex and less immediate ties between capital and politics. This does not belie the connections between them, but contradicts most of the literature, which sees a rather direct connection between them.Item Cartoon controversies: law student views about free speech and Zapiro’s satirisation of South Africa’s president(Taylor & Francis, 2017-05-22) Bronstein, V.; Glaser, D.; Werbeloff, M.Although the Constitutional Court has been a protector of freedom of expression, major controversies about speech illustrate deep divisions among South Africans. This article explores attitudes of law students at the University of the Witwatersrand to freedom of expression. The authors take the realist view that these students are future legal interpreters of the Constitution and their attitudes may well have an impact on future jurisprudence. They follow-up previous research which measured attitudes to political freedom of expression by asking students about their responses to a sample of Zapiro cartoons depicting President Zuma. After exploring the role of cartoons in a democracy, the article looks at new data obtained by questioning final year students about the same cartoons four years after the initial study. The new data substantially confirms earlier results which indicate that Wits students would not robustly support Zapiro’s right to create his more controversial caricatures. This result reinforces the view that supporters of freedom of expression in South Africa may not be able to call upon consistent or robust elite and popular support in resisting banning or criminalisation of speech.Item Characterising the Relationship Between Market Power and Inequality in Southern and East Africa. Why It Matters?(Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2022) Padayachie, Karissa Moothoo; Vilakazi, ThandoThis working paper focuses on competition in the southern and east Africa region where there is a range of large firms with significant market power operating across political borders. It is against this background that it is important to understand the link between market power and inequality (Kaira, 2017; Nsomba et al., 2022). This paper provides preliminary reflections on what we know about that relationship, and details reasons why we need to understand it.Item Citizenship, xenophobic violence and law's dark side(2010-02-08) Klaaren, JonathanThis paper discusses xenophobic violence and the role of South African law.Item Click farm platforms and informal work in Brazil(Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2022-11-15) Grohmann, Rafael; Govari, Caroline; Amaral, AdrianaThis paper analyses work on click farm platforms in Brazil and argues that work on these platforms updates and reproduce traditional informal work in the country. The methods involve digital ethnography on click farm platforms, WhatsApp and Facebook groups and YouTube channels, and worker interviews. The findings present relationships between informal work and work for click farm platforms in these dimensions: a) culture and language, especially from WhatsApp groups, functioning as an extension of click farms; b) vocabularies and practices around “resale” as a sign of informal work in the country; c) the role of YouTubers in spreading neoliberal discourses; and d) boundaries around the piracy market and illegality. The paper contributes to debates on the taskification of work through digital labour platforms and the widespread neoliberal discourse and identity. First, the click farm platform deepens the mechanisms of micro-work platforms by presenting new layers of “fauxtomation” and “ghost work”, in a platform labour circuit marked only by Brazilians – consumers and workers. Second, it reveals the articulation among discourses of neoliberalism, entrepreneurship, and informal work in the context of the global South.Item Competition and Inequality in Developing Countries(Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), November 2022) Goga, Sha'istaThis paper examines the link between competition policy and inequality, with a specific focus on the impact on inequality of concentration and competitive abuses by firms. In particular, the paper focuses on the role that concentration and a lack of competition have on inequality more generally and specifically within the context of developing countries. Developing countries have contextual factors, such as concentrated product markets and labour markets characterised by high levels of unemployment. These factors may lead to variation in outcomes relative to those seen in more developed economies. It may also necessitate differences in prioritisation and implementation of competition policies. The paper concludes by providing some recommendations for how competition law and policy can be used to reduce inequality.Item Competition Policy and Black Empowerment: South Africa’s Path to Inclusion(Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS), 2021-09) Mncube, Liberty; Ratshisusu, HardinCompetition law is not just about the efficiency goal. Placing value on opportunities for black owned businesses to enter, expand, and participate in markets is likely to be a key element in South Africa’s route to become an efficient, competitive economic environment focused on development and ultimately benefiting all South Africans. The first democratic government of South Africa prioritised the transformation of society on a non-racial, democratic and local foundation. The expectation was that all law in South Africa would contribute to, amongst other things, economic transformation and redress the imbalances created by past racial divisions, and more important foster the participation of the previously marginalised people to participate in the mainstream economy. In South Africa, equity is a recognized goal and a permissible consideration of competition law and a key driver of inclusive markets, economic development and, ultimately, empowerment of black people.Item Constitutional Authority to enforce the rights of Administrative Justice and access to Information(Juta, 1997) Klaaren, JonathanAnalysis of the constitutionality of two sections of the Bill of Rights.Item Constitutional court statistics for the 1998 term(Juta, 1999) Klaaren, Jonathan; Dagut, Helen; Mochaba, Khahliso; Phalane, Jack; Singh, AnushkaDescriptive statistics on the work of the Constitutional Court for the 1998 term.Item Constitutional court statistics for the 2003 term(Juta, 2004) Klaaren, Jonathan; Stein, Nikki; Madekurozwa, Bulewa Rudo; Xulu, Carolina NomphumeleloDescriptive statistics on the work of the Constitutional Court for the 2003 term.Item Constitutional court statistics for the 2004 term(2005) Klaaren, Jonathan; Stein, Nikki; Xulu, Carolina NomphumeleloDescriptive statistics on the work of the Constitutional Court for the 2004 term.Item Core values as drivers of entrepreneurial performance: A study of SMEs in Uganda’s central region(Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2019) Ismail, K; Robert, VThe purpose of this study was to establish whether the relationship between core values and entrepreneurial performance in Uganda’s informal economy exists and whether motivation mediates the relationship. The survey was conducted in the informal economy of Uganda’s central region using a structured questionnaire. The sample included three hundred eighty-six employees of Small and Medium Enterprises. Hypotheses and mediation tests were carried out by way of structural equation modeling, using Analysis of Moment Structures and Sobel’s test respectively. Results from hypotheses’ tests indicate significant positive relationships between core values and entrepreneurial performance. Furthermore, it was established that motivation significantly mediates the relationship between core values and entrepreneurial performance (except trust). Based on the study’s results, it is recommended that Small and Medium Enterprises should seek to acquire skills on how to fully turn motivation into business advantage and how to use core values as tools for marketing the business.