While sharing some characteristics with other middle-income countries, South Africa is a country with a unique economic history and distinctive economic features. It is a regional economic powerhouse that plays a significant role, not only in southern Africa and in the continent, but also as a member of BRICS. However, there has been a lack of structural transformation and weak economic growth, and South Africa faces the profound triple challenges of poverty, inequality, and unemployment. Any meaningful debate about economic policies to address these challenges needs to be informed by a deep understanding of historical developments, robust empirical evidence, and rigorous analysis of South Africa's complex economic landscape. This volume seeks to provide a wide-ranging set of original, detailed, and state-of-the-art analytical perspectives that contribute to scientific knowledge as well as to well-informed and productive discourse on the South African economy. While concentrating on the more recent economic issues facing South Africa, the handbook also provides historical and political context. It offers an in-depth examination of strategic issues in the country's key economic sectors, and brings together diverse analytical perspectives.

Inequality has emerged as a key development challenge. It holds implications for economic growth and redistribution and translates into power asymmetries that can endanger human rights, create conflict, and embed social exclusion and chronic poverty. For these reasons, it underpins intense public and academic debates and has become a dominant policy concern within many countries and in all multilateral agencies. It is at the core of the 17 goals of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This book contributes to this important discussion by presenting assessments of the measurement and analysis of global inequality by leading inequality scholars, aligning these to comprehensive reviews of inequality trends in five of the world's largest developing countries - Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa.

What happens when a previously uncovered labor market is regulated? We exploit the introduction of a minimum wage in South Africa and variation in the intensity of this law to identify increases in wages and no statistically significant effects on employment on the intensive or extensive margins for domestic workers. These large, partial responses to the law are somewhat surprising, given the lack of monitoring and enforcement in this informal sector. We interpret these changes as evidence that strong external sanctions are not necessary for new labor legislation to have a significant impact on informal sectors of developing countries, at least in the short-run.

The need for the creation of an enabling political, legal and economic environment for women within Turkey is rising. A growing concern is shown at the ethnic divisions and local discrimination against women, which have spilled over into the labor market. This book lends a supporting voice to the economic and social empowerment of women globally, focusing on the real causes and the unpredictable nature of the ongoing conflicts surrounding the issue. The authors bring to the forefront problems of development within various regions and the implementation of projects, which address the state of women, inequality and risks, that are inimical to their participation in the economy. Emphasis is laid on why women should be permitted access to the many opportunities in information technology and exchange, partnership growth and networking in this digital era. The oppressive policies of Turkey are scrutinized to unravel the dangers they pose to the corporate existence of women in the modern world. Furthermore, this book centers on the deliberation on regional politics and issues on gender and women’s empowerment in modern Turkey whilst comparing with other countries. The work sheds light on salient issues and possible remedies within target countries and the concerted efforts made to create a reliable structure to discuss gender conflicts. Ample contributions from countries such as the US, Germany, Serbia, South Africa and United Kingdom are pivotal to comparing and examining the main debates. Addressing several global gender-related examples as well as Turkey’s national principles, this book encourages full involvement of women and girls in deciding the fate of their country. This book serves as the rallying point of an array of informative and mind-expanding works of literature in regional studies, gender studies, migration economy, and area studies in countries like Turkey, USA, Serbia, UK, and India. Experts, students, and readers in the academic sphere may find this work educative and intellectually fulfilling.

Sustainable development is necessary to counteract and mitigate the impact of socially harmful forces in a globalized world. However, sustainable development and its organizations must ensure the effective management of their funds and beneficial financial frameworks in order to best realize their sustainable goals. There is a need for studies that seek to understand how to connect sustainable development and the financial world in order to maximize the economic and environmental wellbeing of the world. Social, Economic, and Environmental Impacts Between Sustainable Financial Systems and Financial Markets is a pivotal reference source that examines the funding and monetary utilization of environmental and socially-responsible entities. Featuring research on topics such as green taxes, intergenerational equity, and shadow economy, this book is ideally designed for government officials, policymakers, economists, financial managers, sustainability developers, and academicians seeking current research on the relationship between new sustainable financial phenomena and negative global externalities.

While the economic growth renaissance in sub-Saharan Africa is widely recognized, much less is known about progress in living conditions. This book comprehensively evaluates trends in living conditions in 16 major sub-Saharan African countries, corresponding to nearly 75% of the total population. A striking diversity of experience emerges. While monetary indicators improved in many countries, others are yet to succeed in channeling the benefits of economic growth into the pockets of the poor. Some countries experienced little economic growth, and saw little material progress for the poor. At the same time, the large majority of countries have made impressive progress in key non-monetary indicators of wellbeing. Overall, the African growth renaissance earns two cheers, but not three. While gains in macroeconomic and political stability are real, they are also fragile. Growth on a per capita basis is much better than in the 1980s and 1990s, yet not rapid compared with other developing regions. Importantly from a pan-African perspective, key economies-particularly Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa-are not among the better performers. Looking forward, realistic expectations are required. The development process is, almost always, a long hard slog. Nevertheless, real and durable factors appear to be at play on the sub-continent with positive implications for growth and poverty reduction in future.

Global capitalism is affected by the malaises of stagnation, financial fragility, increased income inequality, growing wealth concentration at the top, and a vanishing fair social contract. This book focuses on the incidence of these phenomena in the US, UK, Greece, Spain, Chile, South Africa, Australia, China, and other countries. The book looks at the effects of IMF-ECB led austerity policies in Europe. The book examines concrete country and global conditions combining theory, country studies, historical evidence, and international comparative analysis. The book also proposes new policy priorities to restore stability, reduce inequality, and consolidate democracy in 21st century capitalism.