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Abstract
This report provides a technical description of the development of a set of Social Accounting Matrices (SAMs) for South Africa for the base year 2000. The set of SAMs consists of a national SAM, four regional SAMs and a multiregional SAM. The point of departure is a National Accounting Matrix (NAM) for South Africa. The report discusses the structure of each type of SAM, the main data sources that were used and the way in which different sets of data were organised for inclusion in the SAM. Entropy techniques were used to estimate missing information in order to derive complete and consistent SAMs. The theory and practical implementation of the entropy techniques are discussed in this report. The large number of accounts included in the SAMs warranted that the entropy estimation be introduced in different phases in order to ease the complexity of the problem. The SAMs all contain substantial detail on the agricultural industry. The inclusion of various different tax accounts allows for fiscal policy analysis. Detailed factor and household accounts capture the functional distribution of income to households, making the SAMs suitable to analyse the effects of policy changes on income redistribution using Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models and microsimulation techniques.