South Africa: Selected Issues

International Monetary Fund

No 2020/034, IMF Staff Country Reports from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: This Selected Issues paper studies the growth-inflation trade-off of monetary policy in South Africa. The combination of low growth and stubbornly high inflation expectations for a protracted period has complicated monetary policy decisions. The IMF staff analysis contributes to the ongoing growth-inflation trade-off discussion in South Africa, concluding that there is limited growth trade-off of monetary policy efforts to anchor inflation expectations at a lower level at present. The findings in this note suggest that the South African Reserve Bank should continue its efforts of anchoring inflation and inflation expectations at a lower level because monetary policy lends limited support to growth dampened by structural issues. During the 2010s, domestic demand growth responded little to monetary policy action. The environment of weak growth, low interest rates, and relatively moderate inflation (expectations) could have muted monetary policy transmission. Ultimately, the constraints to economic growth need to be removed. Meanwhile, inflation expectations continue to respond to monetary policy action albeit to a lesser extent. Monetary policy transmission through demand has weakened––demand growth does not systematically respond to monetary policy action nor does core inflation––but the exchange rate and credibility channels appear to remain operational.

Keywords: ISCR; CR; rand volatility; inflation expectation; monetary policy; rand; growth-inflation tradeoff; monetary policy action; demand growth; administered price inflation; Private investment; Inflation; Depreciation; Currencies; Total factor productivity; Africa; Global (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38
Date: 2020-01-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=49004 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:imf:imfscr:2020/034

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Staff Country Reports from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Akshay Modi ().