The analysis of investment activity in South Africa : (1994-2015)

Abstract

Investment as one of the important macroeconomic variables can ensure infrastructure development and growth in the economy by raising the productive capacity. The study seeks to examine the determinants of investment activity in South Africa by means of the Cointegrated Vector Autoregression approach. The results of this study could assist policy makers to come up with policies that could encourage investment. The findings will add to the existing theory and knowledge as there is limited research on investment, more especially in South Africa. The empirical results revealed that the long and short run relationship exists amongst the variables under investigation. Furthermore, it was found that there is positive relationship between economic growth, interest rate, inflation and investment. Taxation and investment are negatively related in South Africa both in the long and short run. This indicates that investment activity can be explained by tax, economic growth, interest rates and inflation. The study recommend that the government should also find methods of increasing its revenue base. This could be done by creating a tax policy and system that is able to capture the informal sector because various un-registered businesses go unrecorded when estimating the tax to be collected in a fiscal year. This may be another way of increasing the level economic growth (GDP) since it will generate more fund for government to spend. KEY CONCEPTS: Gross fixed capital formation, Economic growth, taxation, interest rates, inflation.