Research Fellows

 

  • ALEM, Yonas

    Yonas Alem smiling
    Dr Yonas Alem

    Yonas Alem is the Director of Academic Programs at the Environment for Development (EfD) and an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg. He is also a researcher at MIT's Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL). He received his PhD at the Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg. Alem’s research is at the intersection of development economics, environmental economics, and behavioral and experimental economics with a particular focus on risk and shocks, energy and climate, technology adoption, preference formation, and poverty dynamics in the developing regions of Africa and South Asia. His research uses panel data econometrics and impact evaluation methods, primarily large-scale randomized controlled trials. Alem has engaged in teaching in the following courses: Advanced Panel Data Econometrics (PhD), Causal Inference and Impact Evaluation (PhD), Development Economics (PhD), Academic Writing and Research Ethics (PhD). Since 2012, Yonas Alem supervised PhDs dissertations of eight candidates at the Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg, and trained and mentored 20 EfD Early Career Fellows.

    Contact: yonas.alem@gu.se

    Additional links: EfD Profile

  • BLACK, Anthony

    Professor Anthony Black

    Anthony Black is Professor in the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and Director of Policy Research in International Services and Manufacturing (PRISM). He holds degrees from the Universities of Cape Town, Sussex (United Kingdom), and KwaZulu-Natal (Durban, South Africa). From 2003 to 2005 he was Director of the School of Economics. His main fields of expertise are development economics, trade and industrial policy. He has acted as an advisor to the Department of Trade and Industry in South Africa, and played a key role in the establishment and implementation of the Motor Industry Development Programme and subsequent automotive policy. He has also acted as a consultant to other African governments as well as to a number of organizations, including UNIDO and UNCTAD. His publications include two edited volumes, Towards Employment Intensive Growth in South Africa (2016) and Value Chains in Sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges of Integration into the Global Economy (2019). Research collaborations or fellowships with institutions internationally have included the International Motor Vehicle Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States, the Centre for New and Emerging Markets at the London Business School, Groupe dEtudes et de Recherche Permanent sur l'Industrie et les Salaries de l'Automobile (GERPISA) in Paris, the World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER) in Helsinki, and the United Nations University Institute for New Technology (UNUIntech) in Maastricht in the Netherlands. Research focus Development economics, industrial policy and green industrialization; automotive industry and electric vehicles; garment industry; foreign direct investment; trade and regional integration.

    Contact: anthony.black@uct.ac.za ; +27 21 650 2729

  • DANIELS, Reza

    Associate Professor Reza Daniels

    Reza Daniels is an Associate Professor with the School of Economics at UCT. As a Senior Research Fellow at EPRU, he contributes to EPRU's emerging research in greener economic growth, waste management and beneficiation, biomass commercialisation technologies, and behavioural nudges that inform plastics use and mis-use. He is also a research associate with the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU) in the UCT School of Economics. In 2020, Reza is also a visiting Associate Professor at the Economics and Planning Unit at the Indian Statistical Institute in Delhi, India.

    Contact: reza.daniels@uct.ac.za; +27 (0)21 650 4100

  • DAVIDS, Allan

    Photo of Allan Davids
    Dr Allan Davids

    Dr. Allan Davids is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town and until 2023, held the South African Reserve Bank Research Chair in Financial Stability Studies. Allan holds a PhD in Economics from UCT and has spent time as a visiting academic at several leading universities, including the Stern School of Business at New York University, the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the University of Oxford and Imperial College London. Allan’s research spans topics from housing, household finance, and public finance, with a growing interest in climate finance. At UCT, Allan teaches public finance and econometrics and also convenes the Masters in Financial Technology, the first Master’s degree specializing in Financial Technology on the African continent.

    Contact: allan.davids@uct.ac.za

  • LEIMAN, Anthony

    Associate Professor Anthony Leiman

    Tony Leiman is an Emeritus Associate Professor at the University of Cape Town School of Economics and former EPRU director. He has been researching and teaching environmental economics since 1990. In 1993/4 he spent a sabbatical year at CSERGE (University College London) which cemented his interest in the field. His research areas include fisheries, mining, pollution control, and project appraisal. Research focus: Fisheries; mining policy and taxation; water policy and treatment of grey water; air pollution; road management.

    Contact: tony.leiman@uct.ac.za; +27-21-6502725

  • MUCHAPONDWA, Edwin

    Professor Edwin Muchapondwa

    Edwin Muchapondwa is a Professor of Economics in the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town (UCT). He is a guest professor at Luleå University of Technology in Sweden. Edwin was the founding director of EPRU at UCT in 2007, and now remains within the center as a Senior Research Fellow. He is also the former director of the UCT School of Economics. Within the Environment for Development (EfD) Initiative, Edwin serves on the EfD board, is chair of the EfD quality assurance panel, and director of EfD International (EfD’s fundraising non-profit organization in the United States). Edwin’s research deals with biodiversity conservation, community-based natural resource management, energy, and climate change. A special focus of his research has been the economic questions surrounding the interaction between protected natural areas and communities living adjacent to these. Nature conservation is often not considered to be adequately people-centered. Stakeholders who regulate economies usually prioritise people-centered objectives, such as poverty and inequality reduction. Because nature conservation is not considered as being sufficiently people-centered, governments often do not allocated equal priority and sufficient resources. Edwin’s research demonstrates the economic arguments for nature conservation, showing how greater protection of nature correlates with improvements in human welfare, and provides strategies to further enhance nature conservation. Edwin has previously served as a resource person for the Environmental Economics Capacity Building program run by the Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy in Africa (CEEPA) and vice president of the Economic Society of South Africa. Previously, he has consulted for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the African Development Bank (AfDB). Edwin is a member of the Green Growth Knowledge Platform (GGKP) Expert Working Group on Natural Capital. He is also the country representative for South Africa at the European Association for Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE), is the secretary general of the African Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AFAERE) His research has been published in international journals such as Ecological Economics, Environment and Development Economics, Environmental and Resource Economics, Journal of Development Studies, Natural Resource Modeling and World Development. Edwin also serves as the chair of EfD’s Capacity Development Committee and is director of the EfD Collaborative Program on Climate Change and Sustainable Development (3CSD).

    Contact: edwin.muchapondwa@uct.ac.za; +27 21 650 5242

  • NJOZELA, Lindokuhle

    Lindokuhle Njozela smiling
    Dr Lindokuhle Njozela

    Lindokuhle is currently associated with the Research Unit in Behavioural and Neuroeconomics and the Environmental Policy Research Unit at the University of Cape Town. He completed his PhD at the University of Cape Town in 2022, and is now a researcher and senior lecturer within the School of Economics. He focuses on cooperation and competition, public goods, social attitudes, and inequality. He has published work on topics including vaccination intentions during COVID-19, social exclusion and public goods, as well as defining and measuring social cohesion, amongst other topics. Several of his research projects have been delivered as inputs to policymakers and other stakeholders. Lindokuhle participated in research work for the COVID-19 Vaccination Survey (CVACS) and co-presented webinars to NGOs, the general public (including academics), the National Department of Health in South Africa and other government officials on the results from CVACS. These webinars focused on vaccine hesitancy in South Africa and were timely inputs into policy and other work related to improving vaccination rates in South Africa.

    Contact: lindokuhle.njozela@uct.ac.za

  • TURPIE, Jane

    Dr Jane Turpie

    Jane Turpie has a PhD in Behavioural Ecology (1994) and has worked and taught in the applied fields of Biodiversity Conservation and Environmental Economics for the past 25 years. Her interests and experience are broad, but tend to have in common her interest in getting to grips with the bigger picture, solving wide-scale and multidisciplinary, integrative problems. Her environmental economics research has concentrated on the valuation of natural resources as well as valuation, modelling and experimental studies to inform policy measures relating to biodiversity conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. She has carried out a number of studies on the economic values and tradeoffs in the management of wetlands, agricultural and rangeland systems and protected areas throughout Southern and Eastern Africa, using methods such as stated preference and revealed preference valuation studies, social surveys on livelihoods and resource use, and the analysis of satellite data and big data. Her current research interests include the mapping and valuation of ecosystem services, natural capital accounting, and economic analysis to guide the design and planning of nature-based solutions to address land degradation, urban environmental issues and climate change adaptation. She has published 61 scientific papers and 7 book chapters and has written more than 180 technical reports.

    Contact: jane@anchorenvironmental.co.za; +21 (0)21 701 3420

 

Honorary Research Fellows

  • KÖHLIN, Gunnar

    Professor Gunnar Köhlin

    Gunnar Köhlin is the Director of Environment for Development. He is also an Associate Professor at the Environmental Economics Unit, Department of Economics, University of Gothenburg. He has spent 30 years working with applications of environmental economics in developing countries including the development of a dedicated PhD program in environmental and development economics. His research interests focus on natural resource management and environmental policy analysis in developing countries. The applications have focused on forestry, energy and sustainable agriculture as well as environmental strategies at the country level.

    Contact: gunnar.kohlin@efd.gu.se; +46 31 786 4426

  • STERNER, Thomas

    Professor Thomas Sterner

    Thomas Sterner is a professor of environmental economics in Gothenburg and a university fellow at RFF, in 2012-2013 he was on sabbatical leave from Gothenburg and worked as Chief Economist at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). His main areas of work at the EDF were on instrument design for climate policy, catch shares in fisheries and other areas. Thomas Sterner initiated the environmental economics unit in Gothenburg and participated in its build-up since 1990. He has written a large number of books and articles on different applications ranging from energy and climate, through natural resource management such as fisheries to issues relating to industrial and transport pollution. His work covers institutions in different kinds of economies, market, planned and developing. Thomas Sterner teaches PhD and undergraduate courses in environmental and resource economics and is also active in a number of boards and networks such as CEEPA, LACEEP, SANDEE, and AERC.

    Contact: thomas.sterner@economics.gu.se; +46-31-786 1377

    Additional links: Personal webpage; EEU page; Sustainable Future Policy Lab page

Other Team Members