Academic Board of ERSA . . .

The Academic Board     - Tania Ajam   - Meshach Aziakpono   - James Fairburn   - Johannes Fedderke   - Jan van Heerden   - Steven Koch   - John Luiz   - Mthuli Ncube   - Sophia du Plessis   - Asrat Tsegaye   - Nicola Viegi   Ms Tania Ajam   Ms Tania Ajam is a public finance economist with broad experience in the design, analysis and implementation of fiscal policy and sectoral public budget management. Her principle areas of professional interest and expertise are intergovernmental fiscal relations, fiscal decentralisation, budget and public expenditure management reform, the restructuring of fiscal institutions and processes and the role of information technology in enhancing performance orientation, accountability and oversight. Educated at the University of Cape Town and Cambridge, she has a strong quantitative background in statistics and econometrics, as well as information systems. Tania lectured in the School of Economics, University of Cape Town for 9 years and was the Director of the Applied Fiscal Research Centre (AFReC-UCT), the academic partner organisation of AFReC (Pty) Ltd from 1998 until 2005 when it ceased operations due to funding constraints.   AFReC (Pty) Ltd was established in 1999 and Tania was its CEO for the first three years of its existence. In line with the distinctive capabilities of AFReC in supplying superior research-based consulting and training, she now is Director of the Knowledge Centre, and responsible for leading the company in its drive for excellence. She served as a technical advisor to the Presidential Review Commission on Public Sector Reform in 1997, and since then has been involved in several policy and implementation processes around both the Public Finance Management Act of 1999, as well as the Municipal Finance Management Act of 2003. In 2002, she was seconded by UCT to the Department of Provincial and Local Government to act as special advisor in intergovernmental fiscal relations.   Special advisor to the Western Cape Treasury, she was also involved in a project for the National Treasury designing draft municipal finance unit standards for a qualification to enhance the implementation of the Municipal Finance Management Act. She is a registered assessor and moderator with SAQA. She has also provided technical support to National Treasury on their strategy for implementing performance budgeting in 2003. She was project leader for a project implementing a performance budgeting system National Prosecuting Authority (2002-2004). Tania also serves on the Financial and Fiscal Commission.       Meshach Aziakpono   Meshach Aziakpono (PhD) is a Professor of Development Finance and the Head of Development Finance Programme at the University of Stellenbosch Business School (USB). Before joining the USB he was Associate Professor of Economics and the Coordinator of Masters Programme in Financial Markets in the Department of Economics and Economic History at Rhodes University, South Africa. Meshach Aziakpono has worked as a consultant among others for the OECD Centre and African Economic Research Consortium (AERC). He was recently a visiting scholar to the International Monetary Fund. He has vast experience in teaching and supervising at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He is a member of several international and local professional Associations, including the Academy of Economics and Finance (USA). Major Fields of expertise: • Global and regional financial market integration • Open Economy Macroeconomics • Development finance and financial sector development in Africa • Applied econometrics       James Fairburn: University of Kwa Zulu Natal   Jim Fairburn is an Associate Professor in the School of Economics and Finance at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He has been in Durban since 2003, prior to which he spent eleven years at the University of Sussex. He did his postgraduate work and started his lecturing career at the University of Southampton, and before that worked for three years at the Institute for Fiscal Studies in London. Since working at IFS he has had an interest in industrial organization, particularly in the field of competition policy. His main research interest is in the field of incentive contracts and what is variously known as organizational economics or personnel economics. Working at Sussex and UKZN has also encouraged an interest in aspects of trade theory and development economics.       Prof Johannes Fedderke   Johannes Fedderke holds the Helen Suzman Chair in Political Economy in the School of Economic and Business Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, and concurrent chairs at the Wits Business School and the School of International Affairs at Pennsylvania State University. He is also the Director of Economic Research Southern Africa. He was formerly Professor of Economics at the University of Cape Town, Director of the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town, and held the Gencor Chair in Economics at the University of the Witwatersrand. His research interests center on the determinants of economic growth, with special interest in the role of institutions in long run economic development. His published work includes empirical and theoretical contributions, and has provided cross-country, panel and country specific time series evidence on the interaction of growth and institutions. He has also contributed various policy research reports to the African Union, the League of African States, the South African National Treasury and Departments of Trade & Industry, Arts, Science & Technology, the World Bank, and the South African Parliament. Currently he is the Managing Editor of the South African Journal of Economics, is serving as a board member of the National Research Foundation, is an elected member of the Academy of Science of South Africa, and is a past president of the African Econometrics Society.       Jan van Heerden   Jan finished a PhD in Economics at Rice University in Houston, Texas in the beginning of 1997. He is currently the Head of the Department of Economics at the University of Pretoria. His research interests are computable general equilibrium (CGE) modelling applications, such as carbon and water taxation; the feasibility of food vouchers for South Africa; the impact of higher education on the SA economy, etc.         Prof Steve Koch   Prof Steven F. Koch was born in Superior, WI, USA in 1969; he completed high school as the valedictorian at Bangor High School in Bangor, WI, USA in 1987; he completed his BA in Economics in 1991 at Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA; he furthered his studies in economics by completing both his MA (economics, 1995) and his PhD (economics, 1997) at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA.   Prof Koch has worked as: a farmer, a research associate on projects for the National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in the USA, a consultant for national and multinational corporations, a consultant for national governmental agencies, a consultant for international non-governmental organizations, an external examiner for universities in South Africa and across the continent of Africa, a visiting professor at the University of South Florida, an assistant professor at Georgia Southern University, and has since moved to South Africa to work at the University of Pretoria, where he is currently professor in economics.   His service to the economic community has consisted of: reviewing a number of microeconomic and macroeconomic principles textbooks; organizing and chairing sessions at economic conferences across the world; discussing papers at economic conferences across the world; refereeing articles for national and international economics journals. Currently, he is associate editor to two South African economics journals. He is or has been a member of a number of national and international economics associations and societies. In a few cases, he has also received awards; for example, he has been honoured to receive the Sam Walton Fellowship and the McNair Student Mentor Fellowship at Georgia Southern University.   Prof Koch’s research focus remains firmly rooted in applied microeconomics. He has published a number of scholarly articles in national and international economics journals on topics related to: knowledge and the decision to drive under the influence, alcohol consumption and human capital accumulation, individual preferences and market structure in the case of addictive commodities, infant and child mortality in Africa, as well as taxation and economic growth in South Africa. He has recently completed a number of working papers on alcohol and tobacco consumption in South Africa, and is working on projects related to appropriate estimators for models with a large number of zero observations, screening in the labour market, and household level health investment decisions.   In addition to work and research, Prof Koch is an avid single-digit handicap golfer, who participates in a number of community service/charity events throughout the year. The majority of these events revolve around raising money for children with disabilities and for neglected animals.       Prof John Luiz   John Luiz is Executive Dean in the Faculty of Management at the University of Johannesburg. He was previously a Professor of Business Administration at the Wits Business School (University of the Witwatersrand), South Africa, specialising in Economics, International Business and the Environment of Business. He also served as their Director of International Programmes and as Academic Director. He was a Visiting Scholar at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1999 and again in 2006 and a Research Affiliate at Columbia University in 2006. Besides the Ph.D. in Economics, John has completed various other courses including the Cambridge Advanced Programme on Rethinking Development Economics at Cambridge University. He is a member of various professional bodies including the National Council of the Economic Society of South Africa and is on the Editorial Board for the South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences, and the Journal of Development Perspectives. He has been a member of the Euromed Marseilles International Scientific Committee in France since 2004.   He has published dozens of articles in local and international journals including: Applied Economics, World Development, The International Review of Law and Economics, the Journal of Applied Business Research, International Journal of Social Economics, the Journal of International Development, and the Cambridge Journal of Economics. He is the co-author and/or editor of several books published by Macmillan, Pearson and Oxford University Press.       Prof Mthuli Ncube   Professor Mthuli Ncube is Director and Head of School, and Professor of Finance at Graduate School of Business Administration., University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He teaches and researches in Finance, Risk Management and Derivatives areas at the school. He coordinated the PhD and MM programs at WBS. He is a member of the University Senate, University Finance Committee, CLM Faculty Board, and CLM Staffing & Promotions Committee.   He has extensive experience as an Investment Banker, having been Founder and Chairman of Selwyn Capital Group and Barbican Holdings which specialize in Leveraged Buy-outs/Buy-ins, Fund Management, Private Equity Investments, Banking, and general Advisory Services.   Professor Ncube also worked for INVESTEC Asset Management as a Portfolio Manager and Head of Asset Allocation Strategy. He managed Investec’s Global Managed Fund, an offshore umbrella-fund registered in Ireland. The fund had five other funds under it with investments in US, Japanese and European Equities, bonds and money markets.   Prior to joining the corporate sector, Professor Ncube was a Lecturer in Finance at the London School of Economics, UK.   He has published widely research papers in the area of finance and economics, some of which have won awards. His papers have appeared in international journals such as the Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Banking and Finance, Mathematical Finance, Applied Financial Economics and International Journal of Auditing, Journal of Accounting and Public policy, Journal of Cost Management, among others.   Professor Ncube has been a Visiting Scholar in the Research Department at the International Monetary Fund(IMF), and holds various non-executive directorships in the corporate sector.   He is also the Vice Chairman of the Board of the African Economic Research Consortium(AERC), Nairobi.   He holds a PhD in Finance from Cambridge University, UK, on “Pricing Options under Stochastic Volatility”.   His current research areas include both micro and macro issues, namely: finance and investments; asset pricing; outsourcing; subcontracting; financial econometrics; housing finance; organizational theory;; entrepreneurship and economic growth; exchange rates and economic performance; monetary policy issues; financial sector reforms, especially in Africa.       Prof Sophia du Plessis   Sophia is a senior lecturer at the Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University. She holds a PhD from the same university and has been lecturing there since 1999, of which part-time since 2001. Sophia is the vice president of the Economic History Society of Southern Africa and is one of the organisers for the World Economic History Congress, to be hosted by Stellenbosch University in 2012. Her current research includes an investigation into real wages in the Cape Colony, maternal mortality, and crime in South Africa.       Prof Asrat Tsegaye   Asrat Tsegaye is Head of the Department of Economics at the University of Fort Hare (UFH). He completed a BA in Economics and Sociology at Addis Ababa University in 1973, followed by an MA (Economics) in 1979 and a PhD (Economics) in 1987, at the University of Kent, Canterbury. He lectured at the University of Zimbabwe between 1988 and 1992 and at the University of Botswana between 1988 and 1992. He has also participated in the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) MA (Eonomics) programme, Joint Facility for Electives in Nairobi, where he taught International Economics during the 1994 Summer session. He was appointed Senior Lecturer and Lecturer-In-Charge of Economics at Rhodes University, East London Campus in 1998. He held this position until the incorporation of the East London Campus into UFH and his reappointment as Head of the Department of Economics in 2005. His research interests are in international trade problems and policies (especially export intstability, export diversificaion, and growth), public finance and development and macroeconomic issues and policies. His published papers have appeared in the Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Development Studies and Canadian Journal of Political Science.         Nicola Viegi   Nicola Viegi is associate professor in Economics at the University of Cape Town. A graduate from the Scottish Doctoral Programme in Economics, he has held positions at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and he is currently Visiting Scholar at De Nederlashe Bank. His main areas of research are economic policy theory, macroeconomic modeling and regional macroeconomic integration. Current research includes inflation targeting under uncertainty, monetary policy and assets prices, macroeconomic integration in Southern Africa.