Electronic Theses and Dissertations (Masters)

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Browsing Electronic Theses and Dissertations (Masters) by SDG "SDG-9: Industry, innovation and infrastructure"

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    An investigation of the relationship between ICT infrastructure and economic growth of emerging market
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-02) Jiang, Jun Wen; Fasanya, Ismail
    The study examines the link between Information and Communication Technology, institutional quality, and economic growth in emerging markets over the period of 2000 to 2019, using the system Generalized Method of Moments. The connection between economic growth and technology lies on the framework of exogenous growth model. The following findings are discernible from the study. First, a substantial positive relationship exists between internet usage and economic growth, while a negative association between economic growth and fixed telephone users is evident. Second, a positive association between growth and innovation exist in emerging markets, whilst institutions reveal a negative association. These findings have a significant policy implication for policymakers to monitor innovation factors rather than institutional quality to bypass the digital divide. Consequently, policymakers should pay attention to the benefits of Information and Communication technology usage by means of reducing entries cost whilst improving network facilities transfers
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    Assessing State Capacity in South African Industrial Policy Design and Implementation in a Changing Global Landscape
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022) Diale, Rapula Comfort; Nkunzi, Sibulele
    South Africa has sought to transform and reindustrialise its economy. Through its industrial policy, it has intervened in several manufacturing sub-sectors. Despite the numerous state interventions, the South African manufacturing sector continues to deteriorate. The shorting comings of industrial policy have raised fresh questions of whether the Department of Trade Industry and Competition (DTIC) and the state, including its private sector partners, have sufficient capacity to design and implement appropriate industrial policy. This paper aims to assess state capacity in South African industrial policy design and implementation. In so doing, it analyses developmental economic literature, including the Weberian state, the developmental state, the human capacity theory and the bureaucratic rationale theory. The evidence for this research was collected through interviews with key stakeholders in the industrial policy, including thought leaders, policy researchers, policymakers, and academics. The paper finds that to achieve successful policy intervention; the country needs to develop supportive institutions and systems in industrial policy across government departments and different spheres of government. It further argues that the state outsourcing policy research capacity, if used correctly, can be developmental; however, the incorrect usage of outsourced capacity is detrimental to state capacity
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    The Effect of Technological Changes on Work Restructuring: A Comparative Analysis of the South African and Brazilian Automotive Manufacturing Industries
    (© University of the Witswatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-04-03) Mdutyana, Liso; Nkunzi, Sibulele; Saludijan, Alexis
    Manufacturing industries have through the history of twentieth and twenty first century development economics occupied a central role in discussions on economic development. Rosenstein-Rodan (1943) argued that the alleviation of unemployment and underdevelopment in 1940s Eastern-Europe could be brought about by a government-funded establishment of complementary manufacturing industries. Lewis (1954) posited that unemployment in developing countries can be drastically reduced with a transfer of unskilled labour from the agricultural to the more productive industrial sector. Meanwhile, the Global Value Chain (GVC) literature emerging in the 1990s and 2000s touted the possibility of development through attachment of local firms to the production networks of technologically superior ‘lead firms’, wherein they could ‘upgrade’ into more valuable products, processes, or sectors (Gereffi, 2019). Underlying the advocacy for manufacturing sectors have been economic growth models wherein the primary factor determining economic growth is the accumulation and or the increased capability of physical capital (Harrod, 1939; Solow, 1956). With concerns over the lack of convergence in the economic growth rates of ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ countries, later scholars mainly attributed long-run economic growth to investments in human, rather than just physical capital (Romer, 1989)