Do the regularities in enterprise dynamics observed for South African towns and municipalities also occur elsewhere? The U.S. Census Bureau has publicly available data records that allow a quick examination of this question. The data records of counties in the USA, entities for which a range of different measures are available, were downloaded. These included the number of establishments and the number of employees per establishment. The first ten counties of the first State in the data record, i.e. Alabama, were used for a quick comparison. Continue reading “Enterprise regularities are probably universal”
Category: ECONOMIC GROWTH/ANTI-GROWTH FACTORS
it would help more to combat crime effectively
Is the blind leading the blind when it comes to the promotion of black businesses? This question in my previous blog apparently ruffled a few feathers. Let us therefore compare the positive impact of Government strategies to stimulate business formation and the negative impact on business formation by Government’s failures in core governmental functions. Continue reading “Government’s attempts to promote business formation as effective as a rain dance…”
Government is pursuing numerous strategies to promote black owned businesses, e.g.:
- The 80 Black Industrialists’ programme;
- The Gazelles Programme (fast growing small enterprises that should increase their turnover and growth much faster than the market average);
- The Cooperative Incentive Scheme;
- Preferential procurement programmes;
- BBBEE-measures effectively forcing large and medium-sized companies to subcontract to black owned businesses;
- Sector Charters;
- Grants and SEFA loans;
- Land Reform and Restitution;
- The Free State Provincial Grants Scheme and numerous other provincial initiatives,
and the list goes on and on… Continue reading “Is the promotion of Black Businesses done by the blind?”
An important question has exercised the minds of many economist over time: why are there differences in the sizes of different towns? For instance, why are all towns in a region not of equal size? The answer has to do with power laws.
There is no Hobbesian significance in the word ‘power’ – it is just a mathematical term. If the value of some quantity q depends on the value of another quantity x according to a power-law relationship, this means that each time x is doubled, y increases by some constant factor (Ball, 2005).
Whilst the downgrading of investor status by Standard & Poor and Fitch already drives foreign investment away from South Africa with capital flight from the JSE, at the local front ineffective crime prevention by the Government is one of the largest disincentives for enterprise investment: a million people would have considered home-based businesses were it not for criminality. Continue reading “If you thought the S&P and Fitch downgrades scare investors away… Government’s security & protection deficit prevents a million local would-be entrepreneurs from investing”
Because of high unemployment and poverty levels, all South African municipalities have been tasked to promote local economic development (LED) as part of their integrated development plans (IDPs). Various central and provincial government departments, organizations such as SALGA as well as consultants provide LED guidance and support to the municipalities. And academics do research on LED and small towns in South Africa and publish their results in scientific journals. Yet, given the above, there is an aspect that really puzzles us.
EOSA 