New Policy Brief: Labour and Unemployment in South Africa: Notes Towards a "Grand Bargain"

The DPRU is proud to bring you a newly published policy brief, authored by eminent economist Ravi Kanbur, based on notes from his presentation to the National Treasury, in South Africa, on 11 August, 2015.

Ravi Kanbur is T.H. Lee Professor of World Affairs, International Professor of Applied Economics, and Professor of Economics at Cornell University.

This brief discusses the problematic in South Africa: high unemployment, high inequality and low growth, combined with a lack of consensus on what to do. Prof Kanbur's basic argument is that it might be more fruitful to think in “grand bargain” terms, of a package of policies whose thrust is to balance alternative perspectives, whose differences cannot be resolved through technical debate, and to set the needs of short term political economy imperatives against the long time horizon needed for the working of policies and interventions to address deep structural legacies.​

To read the full policy brief, go to: http://www.dpru.uct.ac.za/pb-1543-labour-and-unemployment-south-africa-notes-towards-grand-bargain​