Trade integration and firm performance: Evidence from South Africa

Megan Shongwe, Ashley Gandy, Aimable Nsabimana and Michael Kilumelume

No wp-2026-100, WIDER Working Paper Series from World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER)

Abstract: This study examines the 2013 South Africa-China Strategic Trade Agreement (STA) and its implications on firms using a decade of microdata in South Africa. Exploiting the policy's quasi-exogenous nature, we show that the STA is associated with a reorientation toward Chinese capital goods, increasing firm-level capital-labour ratios. We also find suggestive evidence that gains in sales and value-added are consistent with a 'scale effect' that may have offset potential labour displacement from capital-labour substitution.

Keywords: cooperation; Trade; Firm performance; Labour market outcomes; South Africa; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publ ... firm-performance.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 403 Forbidden

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:unu:wpaper:wp-2026-100

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in WIDER Working Paper Series from World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Siméon Rapin ().