 Lowering barriers to entrepreneurship and promoting small business growth in South AfricaChristine Lewis and Boingotlo Gasealahwe No 1449, OECD Economics Department Working Papers from OECD Publishing Abstract: Lowering high levels of unemployment and inequality are amongst the largest challenges facing South Africa. More entrepreneurs and thriving small businesses would contribute to inclusive growth. Measures of entrepreneurial activity are lower in South Africa than in other emerging economies. Barriers to entrepreneurship include bureaucratic procedures and licensing, which are also an ongoing burden on small firms. Public procurement is being used to overcome the dominance of large incumbents, but so far its net effect on small firms is not clear. An education system that better equipped students with basic skills as well as entrepreneurial skills would grow the pipeline of entrepreneurs. New forms of financing are slowly emerging in a system that is dominated by banks. A better evidence base is crucial for more effective financial and non-financial support programmes to boost start-up rates and small firms’ growth. Keywords: business regulation; entrepreneurial skills; entrepreneurship; micro and small business; small business taxation; South Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:ecoaaa:1449-en Access Statistics for this paper More papers in OECD Economics Department Working Papers from OECD Publishing Contact information at EDIRC. |
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