PhD: Essays in export behaviour at the firm level

South Africa - 21 November 2017

The study investigates the behaviour of South African exporting firms (and workers) and their response to trade over time, which can inform policymakers on how to optimise export-led strategies which in turn can stimulate economic growth and job creation. There are three main findings. Firstly, South African exporters are heterogeneous in nature. Firms exporting to the international market employ the most workers and pay the highest wages (as opposed to those exporting to African or SACU countries only). Furthermore, relative to non-exporters, employment growth is higher for exporters, but the growth is skewed towards older, higher earning workers. Secondly, when considering wage distribution, the results indicate that all employees in an exporting firm earn a wage premium which increases in magnitude towards the upper tail of the distribution, indicating wage inequality. Much of this wage inequality can be explained by the size and labour productivity of a firm. Finally, the results indicate that the reason why exporting firms pay higher wages is not due to their export status or the distribution of their wages. It is rather due to a combination of observable as well as unobservable firm, individual and job characteristics (i.e. the inherent characteristics of a firm).

2016‒2017 progress:
The PhD was completed in the 2016‒2017 year and was submitted on 18 May 2017 for examination. On 8 August 2017, Ms Bezuidenhout received her results and a PhD degree in Economics will be conferred on her at the PhD graduation ceremony on 26 October 2017.

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