Hausmann, R., O’Brien, T., Fortunato, A., Lochmann, A., Shah, K., Venturi, L., et al. (2023, 15 November). Growth Through Inclusion in South Africa. CID Faculty Working Paper No. 434. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Growth Lab, Harvard University.
The study finds that South Africa’s slowdown “is not due to macroeconomic problems or external shocks” and traces it to the decline of state-run network industries, electricity and freight logistics above all, and to exclusion that keeps much of the population outside the formal economy. It states that state failure “squandered the country’s comparative advantage in cheap, coal-fired electricity” and that the weakening of mining began before 2008. The project was funded by ASISA and BASA, the asset-management and banking industry associations, and the paper is not peer-reviewed. The wiki uses it in South Africa on the Curve as the most detailed diagnosis of the period after 2008.