Impumelelo Economic Growth Lab

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Impumelelo Economic Growth Lab

Impumelelo Economic Growth Lab

The Impumelelo Economic Growth Lab is a unit at the BER that focuses on generating policy-relevant work and building capacity to achieve economic success in South Africa. Impumelelo means success.

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RESEARCH NOTE: Beyond GDP: towards a real-time barometer of economic activity

Date Uploaded: February 05 2026 08:00


The authority of GDP is hard to escape, but there is a growing need to broaden our gauge of economic activity. This note makes the case for complementing GDP with a transparent, high-frequency “barometer” as a sense-check of South Africa's economy.