Director, DPRU, School of Economics, UCT   

Expertise: Labour Economics, Poverty, Income Distribution, Inclusive Growth, Minimum Wages

Haroon Bhorat portrait

Haroon Bhorat is Professor of Economics and Director of the DPRU. He holds an NRF B2 rating, and with a total citation estimate of nearly 8500 and an h-index of 52, he is one of the most cited South African economists globally.

He currently serves on the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC), established by President Ramaphosa to generate new ideas for economic growth, job creation and addressing poverty in South Africa. Prof. Bhorat holds the DST/NRF SARChI Chair in Economic Growth, Poverty and Inequality Research. He is a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and at the UNU World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER); a Research Fellow at IZA (the Institute for the Study of Labour in Bonn); is a member of the UCT College of Fellows, and was a Cornell University Research Fellow.

Serving in a variety of public roles ranging from high-level advisory work for government departments and multi-lateral institutions, to giving public lectures and seminar presentations at the world’s leading universities (including for example Columbia, Cornell, Yale and Oxford), Prof. Bhorat’s ability to seamlessly switch between conducting hard empirical analysis and providing evidence-based policy advice that is accessible to a broader audience, has had a direct impact on the discipline. His research feeds into policy decisions and pronouncements at the highest level, including Cabinet memoranda, State of the Nation Addresses and legislative promulgation. His work has been hugely influential in policy making in respect of poverty, inequality and labour market issues in South Africa.

He consults with international organizations such as the ILO, the UNDP, the World Bank, Ratings Agencies and emerging market fund managers. He retains an involvement in the private sector as he serves on the Board of two listed companies in the Retail and financial services sectors. He is currently a member of the Steering Committee of the International Economic Association (IEA), and sat on the Program Committee of the 2017 IEA World Congress. He was also on the Advisory Board of the UNDP’s 2019, 2020 and 2024 Human Development Reports, and was a member of the World Bank’s Advisory Board of the Commission on Global Poverty. He is a member on the Advisory Committee of the joint United Nations and World Bank Policy Study on the role of Development in the Prevention of Violent Conflict. He also sits on the UN/WHO’s High Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth. Haroon previously served as a member of the UN Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor (LEP), and was Head of Research for the UN’s High-Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

Prof. Bhorat has undertaken extensive work for several South African government departments – most notably the South African Department of Labour, the Presidency and the National Treasury, including an appointment as Advisor on the South African Parliament’s High Level Panel on Acceleration of Change and Transformation. He served as an economic advisor to two past Ministers of Finance including Min. Pravin Gordhan, and previous Presidents Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe, formally serving on the Presidential Economic Advisory Panel.

He is a Board Member of the National Research Foundation (NRF) and previously sat on the UNU-WIDER and HSRC Boards. Prof. Bhorat is a member of the World Bank Economic Review editorial advisory board, and is a regular referee for World Development and the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, the Journal of African Economies and the Journal of Development Studies.  

He has his PhD in Economics through Stellenbosch University, and studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Prof. Bhorat’s commitments at UCT include lecturing Advanced Labour Economics (Hons), and supervision to Honours, Masters and PhD students.

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Latest Research & Publications:

Refereed Journals 

Books/chapters

  • FORTHCOMING: The effect of wage subsidies on job retention: Evidence from South Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic. In: Social Protection in Times of Crises in Developing Countries (working title). UNU-WIDER, Oxford University Press. (Co-authored with Köhler, T. and Hill R.)
  • FORTHCOMING: Employment creation potential, labor skills requirements, and skill gaps for young people: A South African case study. In: Industries Without Smokestacks, Brookings Institution. (Co-authored with Allen, C., Asmal, Z., Hill, R., Monnakgotla, J., Oosthuizen, M. and Rooney, C.)
  • Addressing Digital Gaps in Africa to Boost Inclusive Growth and Economic Convergence. In: Harnessing Technology for Inclusive Prosperity: Growth, Work, and Inequality in the Digital Era. Edited by Brahima Sangafowa Coulibaly, Zia Qureshi. Brookings Institution Press. 1 August 2024. (Co-authored with Signe, L., Asmal, Z., Monnakgotla, J. and Rooney, C.)
  • South Africa: employment and inequality trends. In: Tasks, skills, and institutions: The Changing Nature of Work and Inequality. Edited by Carlos Gradín, Piotr Lewandowski, Simone Schotte, and Kunal Sen. Oxford University Press. 22 June 2023, Chapter 6, pp 89-108. (Co-authored with Lilenstein, K., Oosthuizen, M. and Thornton, A.)

Collaborative Working Papers