Firing on all cylinders: decomposing regional growth dynamics in South Africa

Abstract

The poor performance of the South African economy has been widely analysed, yet this disguises considerable internal variation, both between sectors and regions. Most disaggregated analysis focuses on national industry trends and neglects the role of geography. We undertake a shift-share analysis with multifactor partitioning to decompose the growth performance of provinces into nationwide industry and region-specific (or "place-based" shares between 1995 and 2018. The main finding is that place based effects explain as much of the variation in growth as nationwide industry effects in most provinces. This implies that the economic capabilities of each region need careful consideration as part of national growth strategies and reforms.