The most pressing concern for South Africa, however, would be a sustained, currency-induced overshoot of the 3 to 6 per cent inflation target, which could in turn “unanchor” broader-based inflation expectations from their current levels.
We can also learn a lot from comparisons across economies with different economic structures and different policy responses to global shocks such as COVID. The importance of watching and learning from foreign economies has also been a central tenet of my career in economics. Economic forces and reverberations cannot be contained within regional or national borders.