Reducing Exchange Rate Volatility and Supporting Competitiveness

Co-ordinators

Prof. Dr. E. Schaling

Prof. Dr. E. Schaling studied macroeconomics at the Faculty of Economic and Business Administration at Tilburg University, the Netherlands, currently Europe's number one faculty in terms of research output.

After obtaining his doctorate at the same university with a thesis entitled 'Institutions and Monetary Policy: Credibility, Flexibility and Central Bank Independence', he joined the Monetary Analysis Division of the Bank of England. In 1998 he moved to South Africa and became full Professor of Economics at the University of Johannesburg.

He has been a consultant to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the Dutch Central Bank, the Bank of Finland and the European Central Bank. He is a fellow at the Center for Economic Research at Tilburg University and at the Centre for Dynamic Macroeconomic Analysis, University of St. Andrews in the UK. In South Africa he has been an adviser to the National Treasury, to the South African Reserve Bank, to the Southern African Development Community (SADC), to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Finance, the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) and to the Presidency.

Dr. Schaling was appointed, in 2007, South African Reserve Bank Chair at the University of Pretoria.

Nicola Viegi

Nicola Viegi is an Associate Professor in economics at the University of Cape Town. A graduate from the Scottish Doctoral Programme in Economics, he has been a lecturer in economics at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, invited lecturer at the University of Malta and the Ecole Superior de Commerce in Toulouse and is currently Visiting Scholar at De Nederlandsche Bank . He studied economics at the University of Pisa in Italy. Before UCT, he was a senior lecturer at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

His main areas of research are economic policy theory, macroeconomic modelling and regional macroeconomic integration. Current research includes inflation targeting under uncertainty, monetary policy and asset prices, and macroeconomic integration in Southern Africa.

A Review of South Africa's Industrial Policy

Co-ordinator:

Stephen Hanival is the Director of TIPS. He holds an MSc Degree in Economics from the University of London and an undergraduate degree from the University of Cape Town. He was previously the Chief Director: Services Sectors and the Director of Policy Analysis and Strategy at the South Africa Department of Trade & Industry and also served as a part-time member of the Board on Tariffs and Trade. His areas of research include industrial policy and small business development.

FDI, Firms and Domestic Linkages: Reflecting on SADC through Case Studies

Co-ordinator:

Glen Robbins is a part-time Researcher at the School of Development Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal and freelance consultant specialising in regional and local economic development, with a focus on regional and city economic development strategies, infrastructure planning and financing and trade and industrial policy. Previously he headed up the Economic Development and City Enterprises functions in the eThekwini Municipality (Durban). Since 2003 he has been involved in teaching and research at the School of Development Studies and has contributed journal articles and book chapters on subjects ranging from municipal infrastructure investment to industrial policy and local economic development. He has authored and co-authored reports for the Cities Alliance, UNCTAD, ILO and other multi-lateral bodies. During 2005 and 2006 he worked with the core writing team appointed by the South African Cities Network to contribute to the 2006 State of the South African Cities Report.

The New EPAs - Comparative Analysis of Contents & Challenges of 2008

Co-ordinator:

Mareike Meyn (ODI, UK): Mareike is a research officer at the International Economic Development Group of ODI. She has recently worked on South,South trade in Special Products and on assessments of the loss by Botswana and Namibia of preferential market access to the EU. Mareike works with Chris Stevens and Jane Kennan, both at ODI. Previously, Mareike worked at the Institute for World Economics and International Management (IWIM) at the University of Bremen, Germany. She obtained her PhD in Development Economics at the University of Bremen in 2006.

Mareike specialises in the evaluation of bilateral, regional and international trade agreements between European and Southern African countries. Her work includes assessing the socio-economic impact of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) in Southern Africa. She has written extensively on the trade-related aspects of regional economic integration in Southern and Eastern Africa and the role of the private sector in supporting the formalisation of such arrangements. Mareike has also undertaken a series of sector-level studies and associated value-chain analyses in selected Southern African countries. She has lectured on development policy and co-operation and trade reform and liberalisation. She is currently working on an assessment of the compatibility of SADC members' national trade policies.