Education and the ability to export manufactures: The relevance to South Africa of the Wood model

Abstract

According to Wood there is a strong causal relation between education of the population and exports of manufactures. Also, a country that is rich in natural resources will tend to have low manufactured exports, which will be exacerbated by low investment in education. Wood's model is applied to South Africa. Increasing the education of the population will be crucial for expanding higher‐value‐added manufactured exports, increasing per capita incomes and reducing earnings inequality in South Africa.

Notes

Department of Trade and Industry. This article was written while the author was a senior researcher at the Trade Policy Monitoring Project, School of Economics, University of Cape Town.