The interdependence between the saving rate and technology across regimes: evidence from South Africa

• Published in: Empirical economics Vol. 56; no. 1; pp. 269 - 300
• Main Authors: Nell, Kevin S., De Mello, Maria M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.01.2019; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Capital investments; Econometrics; Economic models; Economic theory; Economic Theory/Quantitative Economics/Mathematical Methods; Economics; Economics and Finance; Finance; Foreign investment; Growth rate; Infrastructure; Insurance; Interdependence; Learning; Management; Propensity to save; Statistics for Business; Sustainability; Technological change; Technology; South Africa; C22; Investment rate; Technological progress; Time-series econometrics; O41; O11; O55; Saving rate; Learning-by-doing parameter; O49; Multiple regimes; South Africa; Growth transitions
• ISSN: 0377-7332; 1435-8921
• DOI: 10.1007/s00181-017-1354-y

This paper hypothesises that the saving rate and technological progress are interdependently determined by a common exogenous source, so that an exogenous shock to the saving rate determines long-run growth transitions. In an open-economy setting, the saving rate measures the quality of investment-led policies. The evidence shows that the down-break across South Africa’s ‘faster-growing’ regime (1952–1976) and ‘slower-growing’ regime (1977–2003) was caused by a negative shock to the saving rate that simultaneously led to a slowdown in the growth rate of technology via a structural decrease in the learning-by-doing parameter. The down-break results suggest that the saving rate is potentially an important policy variable to engineer a sustainable up-break. To assess this prediction with real data, the analysis looks at what happened in the post-2003 period (2004–2012). The results show that the up-break in the fixed investment rate was not matched by the saving rate, which implies that capital investment did not generate a faster rate of technological progress. The stylised facts suggest that a sustained increase in the total investment rate, which not only includes infrastructure investment, but also machinery and equipment investment and complementary foreign direct investment, may be an effective investment-led strategy to raise the economy’s growth rate on a sustainable basis.