ACACIA ECONOMICS
Ryan Hawthorne, 7 August 2021
The recent unrest in South Africa prompted the Acacia Economics team to consider the options for a basic income grant using Statistics South Africa survey data, and visualisation tools using R and Shiny. To find out more about this, see the Institute for Economic Justice’s write-ups on the BIG.
Genna Robb, March 2019
Draft regulations on price discrimination were recently published as required by the amendments to the Competition Act signed into law in February. The role of the regulations is to provide greater clarity on how new provisions aimed at protecting SMEs and firms owned by historically disadvantaged persons from price discrimination will be interpreted by the competition authorities. This blog post takes a look at the draft regulations and some of the potential economic implications.
Sha’ista Goga, November 2018
While e-commerce is small in South Africa at present compared to in more developed markets, its growing importance is assured. In this blog post, Sha’ista Goga considers the benefits and challenges posed by e-commerce and the policy steps which need to be taken in order to ensure that South Africa makes the most of this opportunity.
Ryan Hawthorne and Genna Robb, March 2019
The importance of correctly evaluating competitive dynamics in assessing the impact of information exchange was highlighted in a recent property transaction considered by the competition authorities in which Acacia Economics advised the merging parties. In this blog post, we discuss the economics of information exchange and explain why it calls for a case-by-case assessment of potential competition effects.
Sha’ista Goga, March 2019
This blog post takes a look at the draft buyer power regulations recently published in relation to the Competition Amendment Bill. While the objectives of the regulations are positive, concerns arise both in terms of their potential economic effects and practical implementation.