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Academic Board of ERSA . . .
 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.
 Rashad Cassim: Stats SA
Rashad Cassim is the Deputy Director General, Economic Statistics, in Statistics South Africa. He is responsible for the production of all official economic statistics in the country. Before joining Statistics South Africa in July 2006, he was the head of the school of economics and business sciences at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg for three years. Prior to that, he was head of a think tank in South Africa called Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS). He has a PhD in economics from the University of Cape Town and his areas of interest include trade policy, economic growth and the relevance of research to policy-making.
 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 is Head of the School of Economics, at the University of Cape Town, and the Director of Economic Research Southern Africa. 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. Recent extensions of his work have examined the effectiveness of performance intensity of aid in dynamic theoretical models, and the impact of governance on growth employing dynamic heterogeneous panel estimation techniques. He obtained an MPhil and PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge, and has held tenured positions at the City University of London, and the University of the Witwatersrand. He has served as Visiting Professor at the RAND Graduate School, Oxford, and the University of the Witwatersrand.
 Prof Augustin Fosu
Augustin Fosu is Deputy Director, World Institute for Development Economics Research, UN University. Until recently, he was at the UN Economic Commission for Africa, Addis Ababa, where he served as Director, Economic and Social Policy Division, and as Senior Policy Advisor/Chief Economist. He was Director of Research of the African Economic Research Consortium, Nairobi (May 1998-January 2004). Until August 2002, he was Professor of Economics, Oakland University, USA, where he served on the faculty for over twenty years. He was also Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Rochester, USA, during 1992-93. He received his doctorate (1979) and master's (1975) degrees in economics from Northwestern University, USA, and his bachelor’s with honors (distinction, cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) in mathematics and economics from Lawrence University, USA (1973). Dr. Fosu has published extensively in economic growth and development and in labor economics. He is ranked among the "top 500 economists" worldwide based on his published articles:
http://student.vub.ac.be/%7Etcoupe/update/authorsarticles.html
http://student.vub.ac.be/~tcoupe/update/authorsbauwens.html
Prof. Fosu is coeditor of the Journal of African Economies (Oxford), and also serves on six other international journal editorial boards, including: Journal of Development Studies, Oxford Development Studies, World Bank Economic Review, and World Development. He is a past president of the National Economic Association (1997) and of the African Finance and Economics Association (1998 and 1999), both based in the USA. A native of Ghana, Dr. Fosu resided in the USA for about thirty years.
 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 Merle Holden
Professor Merle Holden is Head of the School of Economics and Management at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban. After graduating from the University of Natal with an Honours degree, she completed her graduate study in the USA and holds a PhD in Economics from Duke University. She was Associate Professor of Economics at George Mason University in Virginia, USA, before returning to South Africa in 1982 to the University of Natal. Her areas of specialisation are in international trade theory and policy, open economy macroeconomics and competition policy. Her research has been published in the Review of Economics and Statistics, World Economy, The South African Journal of Economics, Journal of Economic Development and Development Southern Africa. She is a past president of the Economic Society of South Africa and has consulted for the World Bank and UNCTAD. She presently serves on the Board of the Trade and Industry Policy Strategies, is a member of the Competition Tribunal of South Africa, and the Financial Markets Advisory Board.
 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 Dori Posel
Professor Dori Posel holds an NRF Research Chair (SARChI) in Economic Development in the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). Her areas of specialisation include migration, labour, household behaviour, and household survey design and analysis. She has published widely on research relating to labour migration and remittance behaviour; changes in labour force participation and employment; the determinants of earnings; and intrahousehold allocation. Dori holds a Ph.D in Economics from the University of Massachusetts (Amherst). She has been the recipient of numerous research awards and fellowships, including the Vice-Chancellor's Research Award in 2005. Before moving to the School of Development Studies in 2007, Dori was an Associate Professor in the School of Economics at UKZN.
 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.
 Dr Ingrid Woolard
Ingrid Woolard is a Chief Research Officer in the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit in the School of Economics at UCT. She holds a PhD in economics from the same institution. She has previously worked at the National Treasury, the Human Sciences Research Council, Data Research Africa, the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University and the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Ingrid is currently the co-director (with Murray Leibbrandt) of the National Income Dynamics Study, South Africa’s first nationally representative household panel survey. More than 30 000 individuals will be tracked and re-interviewed over time in order to provide information about dynamic processes such as migration, household formation and dissolution and the intergenerational transmission of poverty.
Her research interests include income inequality, the measurement of poverty, social assistance and labour market issues. She serves on the editorial boards of the South African Journal of Economics and the Journal of Development Perspectives.
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