The economic architecture of the two De Kocks

Abstract

Although the annual budget speech traditionally focused on fiscal matters, the minister of finance regularly covered monetary policy issues in his speech. This paper reviews and compares the monetary policy statements/views expressed in the budget speech with the monetary policy stance portrayed in the annual ‘President's Address’ to the shareholders of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB). The review is subdivided into the main sub-periods of the tenures of the prominent ministers of finance and the governors of the Reserve Bank. The premise of the paper is that the different global and economic conditions, as well as the different personalities/styles, created periods of coherent and periods of conflicting modus operandi. A sub-theme is the growing importance of the South African Reserve Bank in economic policy decision-making during these periods. This paper focuses on the respective tenures, as president of the South African Reserve Bank, of Dr M. H. De Kock and his son, Dr G.P.C. De Kock. It is shown that conflicting views on direct or indirect monetary policy instruments, in particular, caused varying degrees of harmony during the Nationalist Regime.