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Wits School of Economics and Finance Seminars

The School of Economics and Finance (SEF) is pleased to host the Brown Bag Lunch (BBL) seminars.

The Brown Bag Lunch seminars take place on Thursdays at 13:00 - 14:00 at the New Commerce Building (NCB), room NCB221. For more details please contact Volker.Schoer@wits.ac.za. 

2026
  • 28 May
    Sedjro Alovokpinhou 
    TBD
     
  • 21 May
    Miracle Benhura
    TBD

  • 14 May
    Heinz D. Kurz 
    Austrian Economics Workshop in History and Methodology
    Graz Schumpeter Centre at the University of Graz, Austria
     
  • 07 May
    Danick Muller
    TBD
     
  • 30 April
    Jared Osoro
    TBD
     
  • 23 April
    Aldo Sitole
    TBD
     
  • 16 April
    Saida Musyoki
    Gendered Debt at the Intersection with Racial and Income Inequality. 
     
  • 09 April
    Kapele Mutachi
    The role of artificial intelligence and automation in shaping wage structures and employment contracts in the South African food retail and warehousing sector: A comparative case study of Checkers, Massmart and Spar.
     
  • 02 April
    Daan Steenkamp 
    Automated Advanced Analytics and Workflows
     
  • 26 March
    Malcom Keswell
    Activating social capital among young people in South Africa 
     
  • 19 March
    Volker Schoer
    Graph competencies of First-Year Economics Students
     
  • 12 March
    Natasha Dikola
    Who Wins and Who Loses? A CGE-Microsimulation Analysis of South Africa's Just Energy Transition
     
  • 05 March
    Vincent Vandenberghe
    Work Arduousness and (Healthy) Life Expectancy: Implications for Retirement Policy
     
  • 03 March
    Paul Belleflamme 
    Strategically Free: Platform Competition and Pre-Commitment 
     
  • 26 February
    Greg Farell
    The governance of macroprudential policy in South Africa
     
  • 19 February
    Michelle Groenewald
    The Social Reproduction of Economic Ideas in South African Policymaking
      
  • 12 February
    Lesego Masenya
    Comparative Life Evaluation - A Relative Density Analysis of Native and Migrant Populations
     
2020
  • February 10, Nobantu Mbeki (University of the Witwatersrand), 'Radical Uncertainty and the Limits of Mark-up Pricing'
  • February 20 (Thursday), Montfort Mlachila (International Monetary Fund), 'The Impact of Conflict and Political Instability on Banking Crises in Developing Countries'
  • February 24, Adeola Oyenubi (University of the Witwatersrand), 'Impact of Social Transfers on Depressive Symptoms: Evidence from the South African Old Age Pension'
  • March 2, Paul Vaaler (University of Minnesota), 'Reverse Regulation? National Political Budget Cycles and the Moderating Power of Transnational Rating Agencies'
  • March 9, Aroop Chatterjee (Southern Centre for Inequality Studies) and Amory Gethin (World Inequality Lab), 'Estimating the Distribution of Household Wealth in South Africa'
  • (Cancelled) March 16, Giampaolo Garzarelli (University of the Witwatersrand), 'A Modular Theory of the State'
  • March 30, James Britten (University of the Witwatersrand), 'Quality on the JSE'
  • April 6, Eric Picard (University of Pretoria), 'The South African Private Health Care Market: Moving from a Bad to a Good Pricing Regime'
  • April 20, Nimisha Naik (University of the Witwatersrand), 'Does Corruption in Commodity Rich Nations Attract Investment?'
  • May 4, Co-Pierre Georg (University of Cape Town), 'Cape of Good Homes'
  • May 11, Dori Posel (University of the Witwatersrand), 'Only a Housewife? Subjective Well-being and Women’s Activity Status in South Africa'
2019
  • February 14, Uma Kollamparambil and Frederik Booysen (University of the Witwatersrand), 'Gender Inequality in the Prevalence of Non-Communicable Disease Multi-Morbidity in South Africa: A Decomposition Analysis' (on Thursday)
  • February 20, Jesse Naidoo (University of Pretoria), 'The Engel Curves of Noncooperative Households'
    February 27, Prudence Magejo (University of the Witwatersrand), 'Former Homeland Areas and Unemployment in South Africa'
  • March 4, Everisto Mugocha (University of the Witwatersrand), 'Import Tariffs Pass Through Effect and the Spatial Distribution of Domestic Consumer Goods Prices: Zimbabwe (2009-2014)'
    March 6, Leone Walters (University of Pretoria), 'Ethnic Favoritism in South Africa: Evidence from Public Infrastructure Provision'
  • March 13, Alain Pholo (University of Johannesburg), 'Market Potential, Agglomeration Effects and the Location of French Firms in Africa' (in NCB 217)
  • March 18, Dambala Kutela (University of the Witwatersrand), 'The Causal Effect of Income on Household Energy Transition: Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Analysis'
  • March 20, Nils Goldschmidt (University of Siegen), 'The Birth of Ordoliberalism'
  • March 28, Milenko Fadic (OECD), 'Income Shocks and Children's Educational Development: The Case of Uganda'
  • April 3, Volker Schoer (University of the Witwatersrand), 'Preliminary Findings from the Early Grade Reading Study: the Impact of a Teacher Instructional Change Intervention on Learner Performance'
  • April 10, Tendai Gwatidzo (University of the Witwatersrand), 'The African Entrepreneurship Gaps: How Important are the Institutional Environments and the Financial System?'
  • April 17, Patrizio Piraino (University of Cape Town), 'Estimating Intergenerational Income Mobility on Two Samples: Sensitivity to Model Selection'
  • April 24, Aldo Sitoe (University of the Witwatersrand), 'An Analogy: Tragedy of the Commons and the Problem of Inter-jurisdictional Externalities'
  • May 7, Montfort Mlachila, (International Monetary Fund),  'Is the African Continental Free Trade Area a Game Changer for the Continent?'
  • May 15, Olanrewaju Adediran (University of the Witwatersrand), 'The Effect of Old-Age Pension on Women's Autonomy: Evidence from Quantile Regression'
  • August 7, Ryan Hawthorne (Acacia Economics), 'Narrowing the ‘Digital Divide’: the Role of Complementarities Between Fixed and Mobile Data in South Africa' 
  • August 14, Biniam Bedasso (Collaborative Africa Budget Reform Initiative), 'South-South Migration and Elections: Evidence from South Africa'
  • August 21, Aylit Romm (University of the Witwatersrand), 'The Nature of Inconsistencies in Measures of Risk Preferences: Self-Reported General Risk Propensity versus Risk Preference Elicited through a Hypothetical Financial Gamble'
  • August 28, Ronald Wall (University of the Witwatersrand), 'Uneven Ties: Multilevel Centrality of Cities and Countries within the Global Investment Network and its Impact on Income Inequality'
  • September 2, Deon Joubert (Eskom), 'Quasi Fiscal Deficits and the Price of Electricity' (NCB 247)
  • September 11, Jonathan Klaaren (Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research), 'Increasing the Benefits, Reducing the Costs: Adding Competitiveness to African Regional Economic Integration'
  • September 18, Lukasz Grzybowski (University of Cape Town), 'Estimating Consumer Inertia in Repeated Choices of Smartphones'
  • September 25, Montfort Mlachila (International Monetary Fund), 'Struggling to Make the Grade: A Review of the Causes and Consequences of the Weak Outcomes of South Africa’s Education System'
  • October 2, Greg Farrell (University of the Witwatersrand), 'The Relationship between Financial Stability Risks and the Real Economy: A Growth-at-Risk Analysis for South Africa'
  • October 9, Yoseph Getachew (University of Pretoria), 'Redistribution, Inequality and Efficiency with Credit Constraints'
  • October 14, Sean Muller (University of Johannesburg), 'External Validity in Economics: an Update'
  • October 16, Paul Alagidede (Wits Business School), 'Cannabis: Pre-history, Economic Potential and Future Prospects'
  • October 21 (Monday), Dambala Kutela (University of the Witwatersrand), 'Political Development and Income Inequality: Does Urbanisation Matter?'
2018
  • July 18, Richard Langlois (University of Connecticut), 'The Fisher Body Case and Organizational Economics'
  • August 1, Tendai Zawaira (University of Pretoria), 'Gender Inequality and Marketisation Hypothesis in sub-Saharan Africa'
  • August 8, Giampaolo Garzarelli (University of the Witwatersrand), 'Autochthonous State Formation by Fission in Southern Africa '
  • August 15, Gareth Roberts (University of the Witwatersrand), 'The Effects of the Price of Food and Beer on Crime in South Africa'
  • August 29, Augustin Fosu (Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), University of Ghana), 'The Importance of Inequality in Transforming Growth into Poverty Reduction in Africa’
  • September 6, James Galbraith (University of Texas at Austin), ‘The Measurement of Economic Inequality across Countries and through Time: an Approach with Implications for Understanding the Distributive Impact of Global Macroeconomic Conditions and Events '
  • September 12, Eleni Yitbarek (University of Pretoria), 'Credit, Training, Risk Preference and Enterprise Performance: Evidence from Ethiopia'
  • September 19, Manoel Bittencourt (University of the Witwatersrand), 'Trade Openness and Fertility Rates in Africa: Panel-Data Evidence' (13:00 - 14:00)
  • September 26, Nimrod Zalk (the DTI), ‘The Things We Lost in the Fire: The Political Economy of Post-Apartheid Restructuring of the South African Steel and Engineering Sectors.'
  • October 3, Dambala Kutela (University of the Witwatersrand), 'Cooperation under Alternative Enforcement Institutions: Evidence from Framed Field Experiment of Commons' Dilemma'
  • October 10, Kevin Nell (University of Johannesburg), 'Conditional Divergence in the Post-1989 Globalisation Period'
  • October 15 (Monday), Montie Mlachila (International Monetary Fund), 'Domestic Revenue Mobilization in sub-Saharan Africa: What are the Possibilities?' (13:00 - 14:00)
  • October 24, Joseph Ajefu and Daniela Casale (University of the Witwatersrand), 'Long-Term Effects of Exposure to War on Domestic Violence: Evidence from the Nigerian Civil War'
  • October 31, Celso Monjane (Roskilde University), 'Rethinking the Political Economy of Commodity-Based Linkages: Insights from the Coal Sector in Mozambique'
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