Thesis (Ph. D. (Public Admin.))--University of Pretoria, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references. Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2005. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (July 13, 2006) Includes bibliographical references.

Africa’s international marginalization is preponderantly conceptualized through world systems approaches, particularly structural dependency. Consequently, the region’s socioeconomic quagmire, characterized by economic stagnation, abysmal poverty, inequality and foreign dependency, is often attributed to its colonial heritage. Particular reference is made to the small size of the African state and its structural specialization in primary production. Collective self reliance based on mutual interdependence (regional integration) thus suggests itself as a logical way to overcome the structural constraints imposed by the small size of the state, while at the same time representing a viable alternative to asymmetric trade with developed countries. It is within the context of this theoretical framework that this study critiques the predisposition of the regional body in Southern Africa, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), towards a trade biased approach to regional integration (market integration). This critique is based on theoretical and empirical findings showing that trade led strategies are primarily suited for developed countries with robust manufacturing industries and complimentary production structures. Countries in Southern Africa are however characterized by a near absence of manufacturing industries, are at different levels of development and show low levels of trade complementarities. This study therefore concludes that market integration is an inappropriate strategy for regional integration in Southern Africa and in the process suggests development integration – a political economy approach, as an alternative.

The rapid growth of countries that opened their markets to international trade has led to an increase in the number of Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs). A number of countries have signed these agreements with their regional trade partners in order to reap the benefits of free trade. Such benefits include: trade stimulation, integrated markets, foreign exchange gains, and economic growth, to name just a few. The main objective of RTAs is to stimulate bilateral trade by integrating the markets of member states. However, RTAs have not achieved the same level of success globally. In some regions around the world, intra-bloc trade remains low post RTA ratification, especially in developing countries. A review of the trade literature revealed a number of reasons for the failure of the regional economic integration model to stimulating bilateral trade. Such reasons include: inadequate economic policies; lack of administrative capacity and infrastructure; protectionist trade policies; political immaturity and instability; and border issues. However, according to trade literature, there is an argument that, in recent years, most of these factors have been taken care of, yet intra-bloc trade remains low. In a quest to provide more answers for this puzzle, trade researchers have identified risk, which is defined as a situation where there are multiple possible outcomes (with known probabilities), but the ultimate outcome is not known, as a possible answer to the low intra-bloc trade mystery. Risk has also been identified as a key impediment to bilateral trade, especially between developing economies, where risk is inherent. However, investigations of the trade-risk nexus are still in their infancy, and are said to be flawed. Such investigations which have generally been done in developed countries have focused on the impact of one risk event on trade, in isolation. This approach is inadequate as risk is a multi-dimensional phenomenon with spill-over effects which require a more holistic approach to explore interdependencies between seemingly unrelated events. As such, there is still no framework for aggregating risk in the trade processes of an economy. This means therefore that the impact of risk on trade is still not yet fully understood. This also means that conclusions drawn from trade-risk studies involving developed countries could be misleading for developing countries because of the differences in underlying economic conditions. This study, therefore, pursued two main objectives: (1) to develop a risk aggregation framework in the form of a composite risk index; and (2) to determine the impact of risk on bilateral trade. In pursuit of the first objective, this study, used the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) as a case study, and developed a framework for quantifying risk. The output of this framework was a composite risk indicator which measures the level of risk in an economy. To construct the composite risk index, this study adapted a framework used to construct other social indexes e.g. the human development index; environmental sustainability index; and disaster risk index. The results from this exercise showed that the SACU member states (Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Namibia, and South Africa) had different levels of risk, as expected. The results also showed that Lesotho and Eswatini had higher risk, which was constant or increased over time. This implies that these countries were less resilient to risk, as they were not able to address the risk over time, probably due to the lack of resources. Botswana, Namibia and South Africa proved to be more resilient as their risk decreased over time. In pursuit of the second objective, this study augmented the gravity model with the constructed composite risk index to determine the impact of aggregate risk on bilateral trade flows. This study addressed a number of issues around the gravity model related to; specification, and structural econometric concerns. Agriculture commodity trade data (from 2000 to 2018) was also preferred over aggregated trade data. From the results, it was found that imports increased, though marginally when the incidence of risky events increased. The analysis showed that a 10 per cent increase in risky events in the domestic economy increases imports by 0.65 per cent. This result is probable because risk could potentially disrupt the production of goods and services by domestic producers. As such, domestic producers would be unable to meet domestic demand and, therefore, goods would have to be sourced from external markets. On the export side, risk was found to have quite a substantial negative impact. A 10 per cent increase in the incidence of risky events decreased bilateral trade by 10 per cent. This result is intuitive because risk in the domestic economy is expected to affect exports more than imports. This result was also expected because risky events in the domestic economy affect the production of goods. This means the exporting country would have fewer goods available to satisfy domestic demand and even fewer for export. According to the results, aggregate risk on the importing economy leads to an increase in bilateral trade, whereas it decreased bilateral trade on the exporting end. This means that risk is a major impediment for countries with export-promoting trade policies. The policy implications are that, SACU member states need to build their individual and collective resilience through effective risk mitigation policies and strategies. SACU operates the common revenue pool (CRP), which is a form of risk mitigation, but it needs proper management. The CRP has a customs component which compensates Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, and Namibia for the trade diverting exploits of South Africa in the bloc. There is also a developmental component which is meant to fund developmental projects. The development component of the pool needs to be channelled towards infrastructural development to reduce transportation costs. This needs to be coupled with interventions that build the resilience of domestic producers since risk was found to impede exports. This would reduce the high dependence on the South Africa economy by the other countries in the SACU bloc. / Thesis (PhD (Agricultural Economics))--University of Pretoria, 2021. / African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / PhD (Agricultural Economics) / Unrestricted

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<p> This paper is an attempt to examine the effects of economic integration in the Central African Customs and Economic Union. The focus is on one form of economic integration, the customs union. A review of the theoretical literature indicates that customs unions should bring changes in the patterns of production, consumption and trade of the countries involved, and would be advantageous through the enlargement of markets, stimulus to investment and competition. From the locational point of view, the formation of customs unions could aggravate the clustering tendencies of industries to few attractive locations resulting in a polarized form of development. </p> <p> The examination of the Central African Customs and Economic Union shows that little change has been achieved in the first decade of the union. It appears that the traditional theory of customs union which was originally designed for the industrial countries is of limited applicability for the developing countries. It is suggested in the paper that the theory should be adapted to the particular characteristics and needs of developing countries and that, since economic integration is partly based on concepts from the location theory, more work is needed to examine economic integration and customs union in the context of location theory. </p> / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

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D.Phil. (Economics) / This thesis presents a discussion of the economic integration between South Africa and the economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China, the so called BRICs. The thesis analyses four channels of interdependence: trade, investment, business cycle and the increasing importance of shocks originating from China. It makes significant and original contributions to the empirical literature by employing several econometric techniques. In the first two cases, a global vector autoregressive (global VAR) model is used to analyse the trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) linkages between South Africa and the BRIC countries over the period 1995-2009. The results show trade linkages between these economies whose magnitude differs between countries. Shocks from each BRIC country are shown to have considerable impact on South African real imports and output. However, there is no evidence of FDI linkages between these economies. This shows that the notable performance of the BRIC economies are not transmitted to the South African economy by FDI flows, but rather through the exchange rates for some countries and trade for the others. In the third application, the nature of co-movement between South Africa and the BRIC countries is examined by applying the dynamic factor model to a set of 307 macroeconomic series over the 1995-2009 period. Particularly, the extent of co-movement between the cyclical component of real output across South Africa and the BRICs is assessed. The results show significant degree of co-movement between South Africa and the BRICs over the business cycle and the long-run, although the magnitude of the co-movement differs with each country. In terms of the lead and lag relationships across South Africa and the BRIC countries, the study ends that only India leads South Africa over the cyclical period. The findings suggest that the first two factors are BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) factorswhile the third factor can be considered a United States factor. The last application investigates, using a factor model estimated with quarterly data from 1995 to 2009, how China’s shocks are transmitted to BRIS (Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa). The results show that China’s supply shocks are more important than its demand shocks. Supply shocks produce positive and significant output responses in all BRIS countries. However, their extent is significant only for short horizon in India. Positive demand shocks from China have positive and significant extent on Brazil’s and South Africa’s output only. The intensity of economic relationship and channels of transmission of shocks are different between China and BRIS. The results based on the variance share of the common component suggest that South Africa and Russia are linked intensively to China, while Brazil and India have only moderate linkages with China. International trade is an important channel for the transmission of shocks across China and BRIS countries indicating that supply and demand shocks in China do not have similar extent on the BRIS countries and therefore they require different policy responses.

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Regional integration is not a new phenomenon but has become an increasingly important topic of political research with the continued expansion of the European Union as well as an increased number of regional organizations around the globe. This paper will seek to use both Europe and East Asia as illustrations in order to better comprehend the driving forces behind integration as well as why some regions are further integrated than others. The purpose of this research is to achieve a better understanding of what causes regional integration in hopes of developing a more inclusive theory. More specifically, it aims to see how integrated the region of East Asia is, in particular when compared to Europe. Through comparing the two regions and analyzing factors in both Europe and East Asia as determined by current integration theory, this research aims to achieve a better understanding of the driving forces behind regional integration as an international phenomenon. My research is an attempt to tie together the multiple existing theories of regional integration with the goal of creating a more cohesive and measurable theory. With an increased understanding of regional integration, we will be better able to both explain and predict integration in both Europe and East Asia, as well as other, less integrated regions around the world.