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The Short‐Term Economic Impact of Levying E‐Tolls on Industries

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South African Journal of Economics

Published online on

Abstract

TERM is used to analyse the short‐term regional economic impact of an increase in industries' transport costs when paying E‐Tolls. Market‐clearing and accounting equations allow regional economies to be represented as an integrated framework, labour adjusts to accommodate increasing transportation costs, and investments change to accommodate capital that is fixed. We concluded that costs from levying E‐Tolls on industries are small in comparison to total transport costs, and the impact on economic aggregates and most industries are marginal: investments (−0.404%), gross domestic product (GDP) (−0.01) and consumer price inflation (−0.10%). This is true even when considering costs and benefits on industries as well as consumers. Industries that experienced the greatest decline in output were transport, construction and gold. Provinces that are closer to Gauteng and have a greater share of severely impacted industries experienced larger GDP and real income reductions. Mpumalanga's decrease in GDP was 17% greater than Gauteng's.