About Professor Johann Fedderke
Johann Fedderke is a Professor at Pennsylvania State University. He holds the Helen Suzman Chair in Political Economy and a position in the Business School at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is also the Director of Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA). Professor Fedderke's research interests centre on the determinants of economic growth, with a special focus on the role of institutions in long run economic development.

Professor Fedderke has an MPhil and PhD in Economics from the University of Cambridge, and has held tenured positions at the City University of London, the University of the Witwatersrand, and the University of Cape Town. He has served as Visiting Professor at the RAND Graduate School, Oxford, and the University of the Witwatersrand.

Professor Fedderke has published extensively and made substantial empirical and theoretical contributions to the field of economics in South Africa and beyond providing cross-country, panel and country specific time series evidence on the interaction of growth and institutions.

To download Professor Fedderke's presentation click here.

About Professor Medhi Shafaeddin

Professor Mehdi Shafaeddin is a development economist and holds a D.Phil. from Oxford University. He is currently an international consultant affiliated to the Institute of Economic Research, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland and is engaged in research and training. The former Head, Macroeconomics and Development Policies Branch, Globalization and Development Strategies of UNCTAD, he is the author of many articles on trade policy, industrialisation, economic reform and development policies in international journals.

Professor Shafaeddin's recent work includes: Trade Policy at the Crossroads: The Recent Experience of Developing Countries (Macmillan, 2005) and Competitiveness and Development; Myths and Misconceptions, Anthem Press, forthcoming.

Professor Shafaeddin's visit in South Africa is linked to a variety of events. He is the keynote speaker at the Fourth Annual Conference on Development and Change (ACDC) held at the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS). He is also presenting at a high level policy workshop to be held at the dti. 

For more information on the ACDC Conference, please consult: http://www.caleidoscop.org/Members/janina/news10/fourth-annual-conference-on-development-and-change-acdc-johannesburg-south-africa-april-9-11-2010 

About Johan Fourie

Johan Fourie is lecturer in the Department of Economics at Stellenbosch University.  Johan is currently pursuing his PhD in Economic History at Utrecht University.  His interests are wide ranging and include not only trade in services but also South Africa's economic history, infrastructure and the Economics of Sport.  Johan's latest publications include "An application of attractiveness measures to evaluate the structure of the Currie Cup" in South African Journal for Research in Sport, Physical Education and Recreation, forthcoming and "A note on infrastructure quality in South Africa" in Development Southern Africa, Vol. 25, No. 4, October 2008.  In 2008 he participated to the TIPS Annual Forum and presented on "The Development and Importance of Travel Service Exports from South Africa".

About Wamkele Mene

Wamkele Mene holds the position of Director: Trade in Services at the International Trade & Economic Development Division of the dti.  He focuses on multilateral, bilateral and regional trade in services negotiations. As South Africa's Lead Negotiator on services trade, Wamkele provides strategic and policy leadership in all trade in services negotiations that South Africa is involved in. An integral part of Wamkele's work is the crafting and negotiation of favourable market access conditions for South African exporters of services.  He is a graduate of Rhodes University, the University of Detroit Mercy and the Centre for International Studies & Diplomacy at the University of London.

About Professor Melville Saayman

Professor Saayman is at the School of Business Management in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus.  He is an expert in Tourism Economics and in Tourism management and development.  Professor Saayman is Director of the Institute of Tourism and Leisure Studies

(see http://www.tourisminstitute.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=2).

About Dr. Rankin:

Dr Neil Rankin is a Senior Lecturer and the founding Director of the African Microeconomics Research Umbrella (AMERU) in the School of Economic and Business Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits).

Dr Rankin obtained his doctorate from the Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford in 2005 and has, since then, been based at Wits.  His research interests are in the field of applied microeconomics. These include: the links between firm performance and labour market outcomes; the impact of trade on firms and workers; the microeconomic aspects of inflation and pricing; and the determinants of educational outcomes.  Much of this research is based on primary data that he has been involved in collecting, both in South Africa and a number of other African countries.

Dr Rankin's recent publications include: "South African Exporting Firms: What Do We Know and What Should We Know", Journal of Development Perspectives, 4 (1): 93-118 with Edwards, L. and Schoer, V. (2008) and "Price setting in South Africa 2001 to 2007 - stylised facts using consumer price micro data", Journal of Development Perspectives, 4 (1): 93-118 with Creamer, K. (2008).

TIPS has the pleasure to invite you to the following Development Dialogue Seminar:

  About Professor Albert Berry:

Albert Berry is Professor Emeritus of Economics and Research Director of the Programme on Latin America and the Caribbean at the Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto.

Professor Berry obtained his PhD from Princeton in 1963.  His main research areas, with focus on Latin America, are labour markets and income distribution, the economics of small and medium enterprise, and agrarian structure and policy.  However, his main ongoing research project is on the role of small and medium enterprises under the current open-economy setting of Latin American and other developing countries, and a related analysis of the labour market impacts of increasing openness.

Professor Berry has worked with the Ford Foundation, the Colombian Planning Commission, and the World Bank, and acted as consultant for a number of international and other agencies.  He has, in the recent past, worked on South Africa's industrial structure, with a particular focus on SMMEs. 

Professor Berry has published more than 100 papers in learned journals and is the editor or co-editor of a number of books including Critical Issues in International Financial Reform (Transaction Publishers, 2003), Labor Market Policies in Canada and Latin America (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), and Poverty, Economic Reform, and Income Distribution in Latin America (Lynne Rienner, 1998). 

TIPS has the pleasure to invite you to the following Development Dialogue Seminar:

About Dr. Jha

Dr. Veena Jha is a Visiting Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Advanced studies, University of Warwick, UK, and a research fellow at the International Development Research Centre, Canada. She is also the executive director of Maguru Consultants Limited, London, UK.

Dr Jha holds a PH.D from the London University, U.K. She has worked extensively on trade and environment issues for over twenty years. She has worked with the United Nations in various capacities for over twenty years. She was the Coordinator of an important UNCTAD/DFID/Government of India initiative on 'Strategies and Preparedness for trade and Globalisation in India'.

Dr Jha has published twelve books on trade and development issues, articles in journals, and was a member of some consensus building initiatives on trade and environment issues in the last decade. She has been a member of several national and international Advisory Boards, notably the United Nations Secretary General's Task Force on Millennium Development goals. She has served as an expert on technical committees of the Government of India, industry associations, and non-governmental organisations on trade and development issues. She has advised several developing country governments on trade and development issues.