Justin Visagie

Dr Justin Visagie is a Senior Research Specialist at the Human Sciences Research Council with a focus on urban economics, development economics and applied microeconomic research. He is also a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Economics and Finance, University of Free State in support of the NRF Chair in City-Region Economies. He was previously Director of Economic Planning, Policy and Research in the Department of Economic Development, Environmental Affairs and Tourism in the Eastern Cape. He completed his PhD at the University of KwaZulu-Natal where he won the prestigious Founders' medal from the Economic Society of South Africa for his thesis on the development of the middle class in South Africa. Dr Visagie has expertise in microeconomic data analysis and has worked on a wide-array of cross-sectional and longitudinal household datasets. His recent research projects cover issues of regional economic development, city-region economies, tradable services, spatial inequality and inclusion, social mobility, urbanization, housing and migration.