This paper documents a South African Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for the year
2009. The national SAM is built using official supply-use tables, national accounts, state
budgets, and balance of payments, and so provides a detailed representation of the South African
economy. It separates 49 activities and 85 commodities; labor is disaggregated by education
level; and households by per capita expenditure deciles. Information on labor is drawn from the
2009 Quarterly Labor Force Survey and on households from the 2005 Income and Expenditure
Survey. Finally, the SAM identifies government, investment and foreign accounts. It is therefore
an ideal database for conducting economywide impact assessments, including SAM-based
multiplier analysis and computable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling.