The relationship between event spend, social cohesion and economic development

Abstract

The study addressed four questions using secondary annual time series data: (1) How is event spend related to economic development? (2) How are the physical attributes of the region (natural capital) related to economic development?(3) How is social cohesion related to economic development? (4) How does human capital influence economic development? The study period starts in 1994 and ends in 2016, accordingly 100 data points were pulled from the time series. Error Correction Model and Ordinary Least Squares were used as analytical tools to test the regression model developed for the study.

Economic development is the dependent variable and is represented by tourism employment data sourced from Statistics South Africa. The independent variables are event spend represented by expenditure figures for culture, sports and recreation published by Statistics SA; human capital was measured using gross educational ratio for secondary education accessed from the World Bank database; natural capital was measured using the gross domestic product attained from Statistics South Africa; and social cohesion was measured using social expenditure data acquired from the South African Reserve Bank.

The theoretical framework that underpins the study is the geography political theory as espoused by different authors including Collier (2007) and Kollosov (2001). On the basis of this theoretical framework the study seeks to look at the effect of event spend, natural capital, human capital and social cohesion on economic development.

The findings of the study show that there is no relationship between economic development, event spend and human capital. However a relationship was established between natural capital and social cohesion. The results of the study will inform policymakers in the allocation of budgets towards major events. It will also contribute to the equitable distribution of resources to promote social cohesion in communities.