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What are the consumer welfare effects of tariff increases in South Africa?
This paper investigates how tariffs affect domestic prices of chicken and, through this, household welfare in South Africa. Our choice of chicken was motivated by its importance as a source of protein and the several trade measures applied against chicken meat. We conducted our analysis in two stage...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English English |
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School of Economics
2026
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| _version_ | 1867613187857186816 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Mambara, Simbarashe Tinotenda |
| author2 | Edwards, Lawrence |
| author_browse | Edwards, Lawrence Mambara, Simbarashe Tinotenda |
| author_facet | Edwards, Lawrence Mambara, Simbarashe Tinotenda |
| author_sort | Mambara, Simbarashe Tinotenda |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | This paper investigates how tariffs affect domestic prices of chicken and, through this, household welfare in South Africa. Our choice of chicken was motivated by its importance as a source of protein and the several trade measures applied against chicken meat. We conducted our analysis in two stages. In the first stage, we focused on price transmission, specifically how a change in trade policy affects domestic prices, by estimating the passthrough of chicken duties at a spatial level. We used disaggregated pricing data at the retail level across the entire country. In the second stage, we focused on welfare effects and used micro-level household survey data. Therefore, the welfare impacts depended on the magnitude of pass-through estimated in the first stage. The findings in the first stage showed a high tariff pass-through across provinces, ranging from 0.533 to 0.786. Additionally, we found urban pass-through to be higher than rural pass-through in most of the provinces. In the second stage, we found that the changes in domestic prices of chicken induced by chicken duties were highly regressive and affected poorer and rural households. For example, higher chicken prices caused total household expenditure to increase by 0.3% to 7% across provinces and expenditure decile. Our results can be explained not only in relation to the different incomes of the households, but also by the diverse effects on spatial prices that have resulted from increase in chicken duties. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/43171 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | English eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:32:09.918Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| publishDateRange | 2026 |
| publishDateSort | 2026 |
| publisher | School of Economics |
| publisherStr | School of Economics |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/43171 What are the consumer welfare effects of tariff increases in South Africa? Mambara, Simbarashe Tinotenda Edwards, Lawrence Kamutando, Godfrey Land Reform and Rural Development trade tarrifs This paper investigates how tariffs affect domestic prices of chicken and, through this, household welfare in South Africa. Our choice of chicken was motivated by its importance as a source of protein and the several trade measures applied against chicken meat. We conducted our analysis in two stages. In the first stage, we focused on price transmission, specifically how a change in trade policy affects domestic prices, by estimating the passthrough of chicken duties at a spatial level. We used disaggregated pricing data at the retail level across the entire country. In the second stage, we focused on welfare effects and used micro-level household survey data. Therefore, the welfare impacts depended on the magnitude of pass-through estimated in the first stage. The findings in the first stage showed a high tariff pass-through across provinces, ranging from 0.533 to 0.786. Additionally, we found urban pass-through to be higher than rural pass-through in most of the provinces. In the second stage, we found that the changes in domestic prices of chicken induced by chicken duties were highly regressive and affected poorer and rural households. For example, higher chicken prices caused total household expenditure to increase by 0.3% to 7% across provinces and expenditure decile. Our results can be explained not only in relation to the different incomes of the households, but also by the diverse effects on spatial prices that have resulted from increase in chicken duties. 2026-05-05T11:05:00Z 2026-05-05T11:05:00Z 2023 2026-05-05T10:55:17Z Thesis / Dissertation Masters Masters http://hdl.handle.net/11427/43171 en eng application/pdf School of Economics Faculty of Commerce University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | Land Reform and Rural Development trade tarrifs Mambara, Simbarashe Tinotenda What are the consumer welfare effects of tariff increases in South Africa? |
| thesis_degree_str | Master's |
| title | What are the consumer welfare effects of tariff increases in South Africa? |
| title_full | What are the consumer welfare effects of tariff increases in South Africa? |
| title_fullStr | What are the consumer welfare effects of tariff increases in South Africa? |
| title_full_unstemmed | What are the consumer welfare effects of tariff increases in South Africa? |
| title_short | What are the consumer welfare effects of tariff increases in South Africa? |
| title_sort | what are the consumer welfare effects of tariff increases in south africa |
| topic | Land Reform and Rural Development trade tarrifs |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/43171 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT mambarasimbarashetinotenda whataretheconsumerwelfareeffectsoftariffincreasesinsouthafrica |