South Africa's Reintegration into World and Regional Markets

The economics of international trade have long been a key concern for researchers studying the relationship between the industrial and the developing world. Trade theory has made much progress over the last half century and advanced a number of analytical tools. Yet, despite these achievements, the field in many respects has fallen short of comprehensively explaining the causes and consequences of trade as it is observed in the real world. With China and India emerging as the main global players of the future, will trade still be the key to economic development for other developing countries?

The present book explores South Africa"s emerging pattern of trade in the 1990s. Decades of inward-oriented industrialisation and strict segmentation of the labour market under the apartheid regime have resulted in a legacy of capital-intensive industries on the one hand, and millions of jobless on the other. Would opening up to trade in the late nineties bring about a new pattern of specialisation, and create jobs? For the case of South Africa the book concludes that, indeed, the trade pattern is changing dramatically, and for the better. The analysis provides a differentiated understanding of the underlying forces and determinants of international trade in modern times, and it points out the limitations of theoretical models to fully capture such dynamics.