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The weak quality of education received by most poor children in South Africa places them in permanent disadvantage relative to those attending the mainly more affluent and better performing schools. This document draws from a large number of studies undertaken for a major project and summarises this evidence, which illustrating that low quality schools act as a poverty trap.

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Measures of core inflation convey critical information about an economy. They have a direct effect on the policy-making process, particularly in inflation-targeting countries, and are utilized in forecasting and modelling exercises. In South Africa the price indices on which inflation is based have been subject to important structural breaks following changes to the underlying basket of goods and the methodology for constructing price indices. This paper seeks to identify a consistent measure of core inflation for South Africa using trimmed-means estimates, measures that exclude changes in food and energy prices, dynamic factor models and wavelet decompositions. After considering the forecasting ability of these measures, which provide an indication of expected second-round inflationary effects, traditional in-sample criteria were used for further comparative purposes. The results suggest that wavelet decompositions provide a useful measure of this critical variable.JEL Classifications: C43, E31, E52

How effective are 'lockdown' measures and other policy interventions to curb the spread of Covid-19 in emerging market cities that are characterized by large heterogeneity and high levels of informality? The most commonly used models to predict the spread of Covid-19 are SEIR models which lack the spatial resolution necessary to answer this question. We develop an agent-based model of social interactions in which the distribution of agents across wards, as well as their travel and interactions are calibrated to real data for Cape Town, South Africa. We characterize the elasticity of various policy interventions including increased likelihood to self-isolate, travel restrictions, assembly bans, and behavioural interventions like washing hands or wearing masks. Even in an informal setting, where agents' ability to self-isolate is compromised, a lockdown remains an effective intervention. In our model, the lockdown enacted in South Africa reduced expected fatalities in Cape Town by 26% and the expected demand for intensive care beds by 46%. However, our best calibration predicts a substantially higher case load, demand for ICU beds, and expected number of deaths than the current best estimate published for Cape Town.