Andreas Freytag

"Flying Geese" Approach for Southern Africa

The countries comprising the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) are currently not very well integrated into global value chains (GVCs), potentially missing out on important development opportunities. Andreas Freytag et al. have explored the high level options for promoting their integration. Given East Asia's spectacular success with integrating into GVCs, they first assess whether the SACU can copy the flying geese patterns that were initiated by Japanese multinational corporations (MNCs) investing in successive East Asian countries thereby becoming the lead geese, to be joined subsequently by MNCs from other countries. Mr Freytag and his partners argue that the conditions for pursuing a flying geese approach are difficult to replicate in SACU. Therefore, they proffer and explore the proposition that South Africa could serve as the gateway for harnessing MNC geese flying from third countries into the SACU region, in time propelling regional development through knowledge and investment spillovers, and serving as a conduit into GVCs. In subsequent work, the researchers will assess whether a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model approach can provide results for this endeavour.

Andreas Freytag is Professor of Economics at the Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena and Honorary Professor at the University of Stellenbosch. He is also Director of Tutwa Consulting Germany, a Senior Research Fellow at the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) in Brussels and a Senior Research Associate at the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA). He is also associated with the G8 Research Group at the University of Toronto. Mr Freytag was a member of the Executive Board of the European Public Choice Society from 2006 to 2009. He has published in first-class peer-reviewed journals on economic policy, international trade policy, development economics and international policy coordination. With Jürgen B. Donges he is the author of the textbook Allgemeine Wirtschaftspolitik. He contributes to blogs and has a weekly column on WirtschaftsWoche Online.

Mr Freytag obtained his diploma from the University of Kiel and his doctorate as well his Habilitation from the University of Cologne. Prior to his appointment in Jena, he worked at the Kiel Institute for World Economics, the University of Cologne, Cambridge University (as Visiting Scholar) and at Eesti Pank in Tallinn, Estonia. He has served as a consultant for the EU Commission, the OECD, the IMF and various public and private clients.