Joshua Budlender

I am an academic economist (Senior Research Officer) at the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU) at the University of Cape Town.

My work is in labour and development economics, using applied microeconometric methods. I have two main research interests. The first is exploring the role of firms in the development process and in shaping wages and employment. The second is understanding the drivers of South Africa’s persistently high unemployment, and policy responses to it.

Other (often-related) interests include the economic history and long-run effects of racial discrimination in South Africa, and evaluating the developmental impacts of policy in South Africa today. I have done economic advisory work on social grant policy for the South African Presidency and National Treasury, and I am currently involved in evaluating public employment programmes with the Presidency.

Causal inference methods are an important part of my research toolkit. I often work with large administrative datasets, and also use and collect household survey data. I am currently running a multiyear longitudinal household survey (“sentinel site”) with the Bulungula Incubator.

I received my PhD in Economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in September 2024, under the primary supervision of Arindrajit Dube.