News, events and announcements

Opportunities at UNU-WIDER/SA-TIED programme

There currently exists two vacancies on the SA-TIED programme for a Research Associate and Research Assistant, both stationed in Pretoria, South Africa.The application deadline is 11 March 2024.

Invitation to the Warwick Economics Summit 2023

Every year the Warwick Economics Summit (WES) invite a diverse range of world-renowned speakers to host talk events and create networking opportunities for 6000+ students from 90+ countries. UNISA students are invited to the 22nd and first hybrid edition of the Warwick Economics Summit, which takes place from the 10th to the 12th of February.

The Warwick Economics Summit is the largest student-run conference in Europe. This year's speakers include:

• Edmund Phelps, 2006 Nobel Laureate in Economics
• Janet Henry, HSBC Global Chief Economist 
• Tarja Halonen, Former President of Finland
• His Majesty Letsie III, King of Lesotho
• Chile Eboe-Osuji, Former President of the International Criminal Court, among many others 

Alongside our diverse range of speakers, the summit welcomes a range of firms to host panels and seminars for all ticket holders. Firms that will be attending WES 2023 include:

• European Parliament 
• J.P. Morgan
• Credit Suisse
• EY Parthenon, among many others.

With the summit's hybrid nature, the WES offers virtual tickets to all UNISA students. Virtual tickets are £8 each, including access to all talks, panels, online networking sessions, and career seminars.

You can purchase tickets and access the schedule by clicking here. 

Feel free to look at our website for more information about the summit. We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Internship Opportunity: Aluwani Capital Partners

Call for Applications: EcoMod Summer School

The Department of Economics and EcoMod invite interested parties to the EcoMod School of Modeling and Data Science Summer School on Practical General Equilibrium Modeling with GAMS. A five-day intensive hands-on course will be offered in Durban, South Africa from 5 December to 9 December 2022. Registration closes on 26 October 2022, and partial scholarships are available to candidates from developing countries and transition economies. The application procedures can be viewed here.

Unisa economist on the radio (2022-02-24)

Mr Mzwanele Ntshwanti, lecturer in the Department of Economics at Unisa, recently appeared on Power FM to discuss the 2022 Budget. Mr Ntshwanti's comments can be accessed here (segment 1 and segment 2).

PhD graduations (2021-12-01)

Dr John-Mark Akandekumtim (back row, far left), recently graduated with a PhD in Economics

Dr Akandekumtim and his supervisor, Prof Busani Moyo.

Prof Odhiambo included under Stanford's Top 2% impactful scientists in the world (2020-12-01)

Prof Nicholas M Odhiambo was recently included in the list of the top 2% most impactful scientists in the world in a study conducted by Prof John Loannidis of Stanford University and his research team. According to the authors, the database used in the ranking had 100 000 top scientists in 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields. The ranking was based on standardised information on citations, h-index, co-authorship-adjusted hm-index, citations to papers in different authorship positions, and a composite indicator.

Prof Odhiambo is currently the Head of the Macroeconomic Policy Analysis (MPA) Flagship unit in the Department of Economics – a programme that he developed in 2012. The aim of the MPA programme is to conduct research that is not only scientifically rigorous, but also policy-relevant to African countries. He is currently working with a strong cohort of vibrant and dedicated researchers who also share the same passion and goal.

Prof Odhiambo is a seasoned academic whose research has made a significant contribution to the scholarly body of knowledge. In the past 20 years, he has published a number of papers in various local and international journals. Of these publications, more than 280 articles have been published in more than 144 reputable/peer-reviewed/refereed journals. In addition, he has published five books and book chapters. He has also presented more than 30 papers at various international conferences. He is also ranked among the top economics authors in the world by RePEc/IDEAS. According to RePEc/IDEAS, he is currently ranked number two in South Africa and number four in Africa based on a number of criteria. He is also the most-cited economics authors in Africa based on the number of Citations, Weighted by the Number of Authors. In addition, Prof Odhiambo is also currently ranked among the top authors worldwide based on eighteen (18) other criteria, including the Average Rank Score, the Number of Works, the Number of Distinct Works, the Number of Distinct Works, the h-index, the Euclidian citation score and the Wu-Index, among others.

At Unisa, he has been one of the most published authors with a sustained record of publication record since 2009. He has also contributed significantly towards the mentoring of young researchers in Africa. During the past six years, he has produced 15 doctoral graduates, some of whom are now established researchers in their own right. 

Over the years, Prof Odhiambo’s research has focused largely on the dynamic linkages between the various macroeconomic policies in African countries and their effect on economic growth and poverty reduction. He has a strong bias towards sub-Saharan African countries, which are currently ravaged by low levels of economic growth in per capita terms and high levels of poverty. His research has covered a number of countries from some of the smallest and poorest countries in sub-Saharan Africa to some of the richest and most developed countries in the region.

Prof Odhiambo responded to this achievement as follows: I am deeply humbled and honoured to hear that I have been listed among the Top 2% of impactful scientists in the world. This clearly shows the impact and visibility of my research. It also further affirms the contribution of our Macroeconomic Policy Analysis (MPA) programme – a programme which I developed in 2012 and which, to date, has made a significant contribution to the scholarly body of knowledge in terms of research outputs and student graduations. To this end, I wish to sincerely thank our vibrant and dedicated research team, including our doctoral students and research associates, for their unwavering dedication and commitment towards our common goal – that is to increase the visibility of economics research from UNISA, South Africa and Africa on the global research map. The mission of the MPA programme, which is the Department of Economics' research hub, is to conduct research that is not only scientifically rigorous, but also policy-relevant to African countries and other developing countries. Our research is driven by three key pillars, namely passion, dedication and focus (PDF).

Department of Economics hosts online Annual Student Awards (2020-11-05)

Dr Ho to receive Chancellor's Prize for research (2020-03-26)

Dr Sin-Yu Ho, senior lecturer in the Department of Economics at Unisa, will receive the Chancellor’s Prize at the Unisa Research and Innovation Awards Ceremony. The Research and Innovation Week Awards Ceremony is held annually to recognise outstanding research undertaken by Unisa’s talented researchers.

Department of Economics hosts EcoMod Summer School (2020-03-26)

Economics, CEMS score in recent university rankings (2020-01-06)

The Department of Economics recently received notable rankings from two institutions – RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) and the Informatics Institute through its URAP (University Ranking by Academic Performance) programme.

RePEc is an internationally recognised bibliographicdatabase of working papers, journal articles, books, book chapters and software components. RePEc ranked the Department among the top 25% of departments or institutions in South Africa and among the top 10% in Africa as a whole. The South African ranking places it in fifth position out of 59 institutions, while in Africa it stands at tenth out of 346 institutions. The Unisa College of Economic and Management Science (CEMS), meanwhile, is ranked as number 7 in South Africa and number 15 in Africa, according to the RePEc report.

The Informatics Institute, meanwhile, recently published its University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP), which lists the world’s top 1,000 universities according to how they excel across 61 fields of study. (Some of the rankings are limited to the top 500 or top 200, depending on how narrow the field is.) Thirteen South African universities ranked in 37 of the fields of study. Unisa’s only ranking here was for the Economics field of study. The key focus of the URAP is on academic performance, which is measured on six academic performance indicators.

Unisa economist on the radio (2020-01-06)

Mr Fanie Joubert, senior lecturer in the Department of Economics at Unisa, recently appeared on Unisa Radio, discussing the South African Investment Conference of 5-7 November 2019.

Mr Fanie Joubert

Unisa Economics students win big at award ceremony (2019-10-30)

The Department of Economics hosted its annual award function at the Fire & Ice Hotel in Menlyn on 2 October 2019.

Unisa, in association with EcoMod, hosting Summer School (2019-10-01)

Unisa's School of Economic and Financial Sciences hosted the EcoMod course “Practical General Equilibrium Modeling with GAMS" in Cape Town, South Africa, on December 2-6, 2019.

'Quasi Fiscal Deficits' and the price of electricity (2019-03-20)

Mr Deon Joubert CA(SA) from Eskom presented his research on electricity prices in South Africa at the Departmenal Seminar Series. The presentation can be accessed here. A few years after completing his training period with a firm of public accountants and auditors, Mr Joubert joined Eskom and has now been with Eskom for thirty years. For the last twenty years he has focused on economic regulation and related corporate finance, planning and strategy matters. He has presented papers at conferences and lectures at various universities as guest lecturer, on topics in the field of economic regulation.

Unisa economist in the news (2019-01-17)

Mr Fanie Joubert, senior lecturer in the Department of Economics at Unisa, recently appeared on eNuus to give his views on what 2019 has in store for the South African economy and consumers. Click here to view the interview (Afrikaans).

Dr Ho wins Emerald Literati award (2019-01-17)

Dr Sin-Yu Ho, senior lecturer in the Department of Economics at Unisa, was awarded an Emerald Literati award for her outstanding paper Determinants of stock market development: a review of the literature, co-authored with Bernard Njindan Iyke, which appeared in Studies in Economics and Finance during 2017.