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Supplemental Material for What’s in the laundromat? Mapping and characterising offshore-owned residential property in London by Jonathan Bourne, Andrea Ingianni and Rex McKenzie in Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science

This article is about South Africa in the post-apartheid period. It has two aspects; first it examines the social and political process through which the African National Congress (ANC) shifted its emphasis away from the construction of the nationalist project (as defined by its 1955 Freedom Charter), towards a world view that privileges markets as the main organising mechanisms in society. Inevitably, accompanying this shift to neoliberalism there has been a corresponding surrender of macroeconomic economic policy autonomy. Such policy is now geared to propitiating global markets that periodically exhibit high degrees of instability. The question arises – how is the ANC able to manage two diametrically opposed tendencies without social upheaval and dislocation? The answers proffered here centres on hegemonic and dependency dynamics that are in motion in contemporary South Africa.

Over the last ten years the mainstream press have put together an Africa Rising narrative which tells us that because of a series of “good” governance reforms and more responsible economic management (by technocratic and not ideological leaders), African countries have managed to transform their economies into growing vibrant engines of growth. Robust growth rates that averaged 5.8% a year between 2002 and 2012 formed the basis of expectations that there was more to come. In 2011 The Economist (Dec 3rd) reported that, after decades of slow growth ‘Africa now has the real chance to follow Asia in embarking on fast growth in a very short period.’ After years of repose - Africa was rising. Basing its predictions on data from the IMF, The Economist (ibid) declared that Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria and Zambia would be among this decade’s star performers. Recent events (like Ghana’s 2015 IMF bailout) may have dented the narrative but it persists because although Africa’s 2015 GDP declined 1.2% to 3.4% from 4.6% in 2014, it is still among the fastest growing regions in world. There is clearly a huge disconnect between the narrative and the images of African migrants risking life and limb to get away from Africa and into Europe. This article explores the sources of the disconnect and evaluates the narrative. How and why did The Economist (and others in the media and the economics profession) manage to put forward the bold claim that the 21st Century belonged to Africa?

Concentration in the South African financial sector has its origins in three main influences that are all historical (i) the legacy of domination by a small number of large imperial banks, (ii) the struggle between English and Afrikaner capital and (iii) the statutory legislation that framed the operation of banks. In this paper we describe the part played by these three historical influences in the formation and development of the corporate sector in South Africa. One recurrent theme throughout the history is the relative position of the foreign bank and domestic bank in the local market place. We take up this theme and argue that the scale and extent of foreign bank operations in South Africa is far greater than estimates provided by the local authorities. We have found that the main vehicle in deepening the concentration of the sector has been the merger. In later sections of the paper we lay out how the amalgamation by absorption approach to expansion that has been a constant feature of the country’s business life comes together with a merger frenzy in the late 1980’s and 1990s that succeeds in further deepening concentration within banking, finance and industry. Last, we end with an analysis of industry structure by Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) capitalisation between 1994 and 2011.

This paper focuses on the subject of monetary transmission in Africa. It begins with a report on the effects of the financial crisis of 2008 in Africa. In the countries with more developed financial systems, the financial channel proved to be the most important in transmitting the crisis. In the more peripheral countries, the trade channel proved to be the most important. Where countries were able to withstand the global shock coming from the financial crisis, they did so with a diversified group of trading partners in fast growing economies. The paper then turns to examine three post crisis institutional developments and asks how a) an increased momentum towards regional integration, b) the rise of Pan African banking and, c) an increase in cross border flows, are affecting the monetary transmission mechanism (MTM) in Africa. It is clear from the literature that the rise of Pan African banking and the regionalization thrust of the authorities are deepening the financial channels between countries. But, with respect to cross border flows, the huge size of deposits maintained by Africa’s BIS reporting banks suggests relatively low levels of bank intermediation and competition. Thus, the benefits that are assumed to accrue as a result of increased cross border flows are withdrawn from the local economy and stored up in the BIS banks. We know large deposits reflect the expectations of the deposit holders. But beyond that, very little is known about the role of expectations and the workings of the expectations channel in monetary transmission in Africa. Even less is known about how such expectations would interact with those formed as a result of operations in the large informal sectors which characterise African macro economies. Until research can bridge this gap, the increasing cross border flows with the large deposits held in BIS banks form the basis for yet another explanation for the historical weakness of the MTM in Africa.

This paper focuses on the subject of monetary transmission in Africa. It begins with a report on the effects of the financial crisis of 2008 in Africa. In the countries with more developed financial systems the financial channel proved to be the most important in transmitting the crisis. In the more peripheral countries the trade channel proved to be the most important. Where countries were able to withstand the global shock coming from the financial crisis they did so with a diversified group of trading partners in fast growing economies. The paper then turns to examine three post crisis institutional developments and asks, how are: a) an increased momentum towards regional integration, b) the rise of Pan African banking and, c) an increase in cross border flows, affecting the monetary transmission mechanism (MTM) in Africa. It is clear from the literature that the rise of Pan African banking and the regionalization thrust of the authorities are deepening the financial channels between countries. But with respect to cross border flows, the huge size of deposits maintained by Africa’s BIS reporting banks suggest relatively low levels of bank intermediation and competition. Thus the benefits that are assumed to accrue as a result of increased cross border flows are withdrawn from the local economy and stored up in the BIS banks. We know large deposits reflect the expectations of the deposit holders. But beyond that very little is known about the role of expectations and the workings of the expectations channel in monetary transmission in Africa. Even less is known about how such expectations would interact with those formed as a result of operations in the large informal sectors which characterise African macro economies. Until research can bridge this gap, the increasing cross border flows with the large deposits held in BIS banks form the basis yet another explanation for the historical weakness of the MTM in Africa.

This is a review article; its purpose is to support a debate on the use of the best available economic theory and evidence in monetary policy in contemporary South Africa. In order to do so, I contrast South Africa's laissez-faire management of capital flows with the experience of other countries where the authorities have opted to use capital control techniques of one type or another. The empirical evidence is fairly substantial, capital control techniques can play a useful part in staving off fragility and financial crisis in the event of sharp surges in capital flows. The key idea is that capital control techniques would offer the authorities more freedom and flexibility in the management of capital flows and the pursuit of monetary policy. The article follows on from Mohammed (2010) who concludes that South African policy makers have not yet learned the relevant lessons stemming from their neoliberal embrace. This article takes up that theme and uses macroeconomic data to show that without capital controls South Africa courts a financial crisis that can be transmitted via any one of at least three channels.

During the last two decades of the 20th Century the economic reality of many Latin American nations changed after a disappointing period of neoliberal policies that aggravated their macroeconomic performance and stability. The 21st Century has witnessed increasing criticism and concerns about the effectiveness of these policies, as well as a raise of leftist governments in the region. Among them, Bolivia has implemented during the administration of Evo Morales of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) a set of policies aimed to change the country's institutional and economic arrangement, and has embraced alongside Venezuela and Ecuador a development strategy that is usually referred as 21st-century socialism. This strategy has focused on balancing the interest of the diverse country's ethnicities and re-organizing institutions that have historically marginalized the indigenous sector. The government has shifted from past neoliberal policies to giving the state a more relevant role in the economy, nationalized the hydrocarbons sector, increased transfer payments to help a vast segment of the population living in poverty, and passed a new Constitution. In 2008 the international financial system was heavily tested by a major financial crisis that originated in the United States. Millions of American borrowers failed to pay back the mortgage loans that had been easily acquired in the previous years during the so-called real estate bubble. The banking system was shaken and liquidity issues forced federal regulators in the U.S. to rescue several financial institutions trying to provide stability to the financial system and the American economy. In a globalized economy it was just a matter of hours for this financial disruption to expand worldwide. This global financial crisis caught Bolivia in the middle of its reform process, and its economy was heavily exposed to the imbalances of the financial system, but the country has managed to overcome this situation with relative success. The main objective of this chapter is to explore the factors that made it possible for the Bolivian government to pass through this critical situation. The study argues that rather than a sound and specific economic plan Bolivia has enjoyed a period of high commodity prices, which has allowed the Morales administration to obtain huge revenues from the state-controlled natural resources, and use large government spending in social programs to alleviate the negative consequences of the crisis. In other words, while many developed countries have been suffering the consequences of the shocks in global financial markets and have faced serious liquidity problems, Bolivia has enjoyed a period of large inflows of cash from the high price of its export commodities. This has served to lessen the negative effects of the crisis, but also to hide some of the structural problems of the Bolivian economy, which have not been resolved yet.The first part of the chapter goes through the economic reforms implemented under the Morales administration. The second section explores how Bolivia has experienced this crisis, and the final part summarizes the main findings and possible future implications for the Bolivian economy. Fil: Justo, Orlando. No especifíca; Fil: Santarcangelo, Juan Eduardo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina