SA-TIED policy dialogue – Macroeconomics and inequality in South Africa

On 29 June 2021, the SA-TIED programme will host its fifth online policy dialogue as part of the SA-TIED Dialogues – Research into Policy series. 

This policy dialogue will be hosted under the work stream on Macroeconomic modelling for policy formulation and will discuss macroeconomic aspects of South Africa’s high inequality.

Macroeconomic research produced under SA-TIED has analysed ways in which macroeconomic fluctuations and macro policies have heterogeneous effects, affecting different types of firms and different types of income earners unevenly, with implications for inequality.    

In this policy dialogue the range of topics may include the relationship between labour market conditions and inequality, the relevance of inequality for fiscal and monetary policy, and the potential effect of broad economic trends on inequality.

About the policy dialogue 

The policy dialogue will begin with Rob Davies presenting a synthesis of research findings produced under the SA-TIED work stream on Macroeconomic modelling. 

Following the synthesis presentation, our two keynote speakers, a research economist, Dr Serena Merrino, and a senior policy maker, deputy governor Kuben Naidoo, will give concise presentations on selected aspects of macroeconomics and inequality.

The discussion will be moderated by Mashudu Masutha, media liaison for South Africa’s Minister of Finance.

Speakers

Kuben Naidoo, deputy governor, South African Reserve Bank (SARB)

Kuben Naidoo is a deputy governor of the SARB, the CEO of the Prudential Authority, and a member of the Monetary Policy Committee. He is an activist and a public servant committed to achieving a socially just society.

Before joining the SARB, Kuben Naidoo was the acting head of the Secretariat for the National Planning Commission between 2010 and 2013. He had also previously worked at the National Treasury, where his responsibilities included education finance, public-sector personnel policy, intergovernmental fiscal relations, capital budgeting, budget reform, and fiscal policy. He spent two years at the Treasury of the United Kingdom where he worked on capital budgets and biannual spending reviews. Kuben Naidoo holds a Bachelor of Science degree and a Postgraduate Diploma in Public Management from the University of the Witwatersrand, as well as a Master of Business Administration from the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.

Serena Merrino, SA-TIED researcher and SARB fellow

Dr Serena Merrino is a member of UCL SSEES where she lectures on macroeconomics and other subjects.

Serena Merrino holds a SARB Fellowship and has published SA-TIED Working Papers resulting from her research on fiscal multipliers, inequality, and monetary policy within the Macroeconomic Modelling work stream.

Her University of London PhD was awarded for research at SOAS on the political economy of monetary arrangements in Palestine. She was awarded the MSc in Macroeconomic Policy and Financial Markets at the Barcelona GSE and has also studied economics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata and at the Universidad Católica Argentina in Buenos Aires.