TY - BOOK ID - 84545390 TI - South Africa : The Cyclical Behavior of the Markups and its Implications for Monetary Policy PY - 2011 SN - 1463903421 1463955901 1283568098 9786613880543 1463969023 PB - Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, DB - UniCat KW - Inflation (Finance) KW - Business cycles KW - Economic cycles KW - Economic fluctuations KW - Cycles KW - Finance KW - Natural rate of unemployment KW - Econometric models. KW - South Africa KW - Economic conditions. KW - Inflation KW - Labor KW - Macroeconomics KW - Production and Operations Management KW - Market Structure and Pricing: Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection KW - Business Fluctuations KW - Monetary Policy KW - Macroeconomics: Production KW - Price Level KW - Deflation KW - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles: General (includes Measurement and Data) KW - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs: General KW - Economic growth KW - Labour KW - income economics KW - Output gap KW - Economic recession KW - Labor share KW - Production KW - Prices KW - Economic theory KW - Recessions KW - Wages KW - Income economics UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:84545390 AB - The study looks at the cyclical behavior of the markups and assesses its impact on inflation dynamics. The analysis finds that the aggregate level of the private sector's markup is relatively high, thus pointing to the lack of strong competition in South Africa's product markets. Additionally, the results suggest that the markups tend to move in a countercyclical manner, with a short-term positive impact on inflation. This implies that the countercyclical pattern of the markups is one factor among others that contribute to the relatively weak output gap-inflation co-movement. In the context of South Africa's inflation targeting framework, the counter-cyclical markups may also generate an asymmetric response of monetary policy to the fluctuations in economic activity. ER -