South Africa's democratic transition in 1994 created expectations of a dramatic turnaround in
the economic performance. Trade and financial sanctions and internal political opposition to
the apartheid government had contributed to the poorest tenyear growth performance (1984–
1993) since the Second World War and the removal of these constraints was widely
expected to transform the country's economic performance. This paper measures the
realised performance of the economy over this decade along a number of dimensions …