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This article seeks to empirically examine the dynamic relationship between government expenditure and private sector investment in South Africa. The research employed a Vector Autoregression (VAR) methodology to experimentally investigate the crowding impacts of government spending on private sector investment, utilising time series data from 1960 to 2021. The study evaluates single equation methods, including Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares, Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares, and Canonical Cointegrating Regression, to analyse the long-term cointegrating relationship between government expenditure and private sector investment. The results offer robust empirical evidence of a beneficial relationship between government expenditure and private sector investment, suggesting that an increase in government spending stimulates private sector investment in South Africa's economy. The impulse response function (IRF) indicated that private sector investment reacts favourably to unexpected fluctuations in government expenditure and GDP growth. The study's findings indicate that governments should allocate substantial funds to productive sectors to stimulate economic activities, encourage private sector investment through robust public-sector collaboration, and ultimately promote job creation and economic growth.

Transport infrastructure is an integral part of economic and social development in many countries, including South Africa. Economic growth theories state that a sound transport system enhances accessibility and output. Despite this, rural areas in South Africa face widespread poverty, poor infrastructure and limited access to essential services. This paper aims to examine the impact of transportation infrastructure investment on the output growth of rural nodal district municipalities in South Africa. This study focuses on two main objectives 1) investigating the relationship between transport infrastructure investment and output growth in rural nodal district municipalities and 2) understanding the causal relationship between transportation infrastructure investment and output growth in rural nodal district municipalities—this analysis uses panel data from 2012 to 2019. We used Fisher type (ADF and PP) panel unit root tests (Maddala & Wu,1999) to determine if the variables were stationary. Additionally, we employed Pedroni tests (1999) to ascertain the presence of cointegration among the variables. Once cointegration was confirmed, our study utilised the Panel VECM. A Panel Granger was then conducted to analyse the direction of causality between transportation infrastructure investment and output growth. This study recommends that the government should improve investments in transportation to improve the output of rural nodal district municipalities.

The issue of road tolling is a topical subject, especially for developing countries who are being affected by paltry budgetary allocations towards highway infrastructure investment. The Zimbabwean Government took almost a decade before implementing road tolling. It was thus needful to come up with innovative, long-lasting solutions to address the financial constraints towards highway infrastructure investment hence the introduction of road tolling systems in Zimbabwe. To this effect, the study unpacks the drivers and the utility of road tolling in Zimbabwe. Through the usage of a case study research design which triangulates both the qualitative and quantitative methods, the study collected data using a survey questionnaire, document analysis and in-depth interviews with key informants. Data was analysed using the SPSS, content analysis and thematic analysis techniques. The results revealed that the dwindling budgetary allocations towards highway infrastructure investment, hyperinflation, and backlog in the maintenance and construction of trunk roads were the key factors that led the Zimbabwean Government to introduce road tolling. Additionally, the study highlighted that road tolling was introduced primarily to generate revenue for the construction, rehabilitation, and maintenance of highway infrastructure in Zimbabwe. Recommendations were made to enhance the adoption and operationalisation of road tolling systems.