Dr Justin Paul Visagie
TELEPHONE: 031 242 5400
EMAIL: jpvisagie@hsrc.ac.za
Dr Justin Visagie is a Senior Research Specialist in the Inclusive Economic Development (IED) research programme at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC). 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, urbanisation, housing and migration. Alongside his solid quantitative training as an economist, Dr Visagie finds it rewarding working within a multi-disciplinary environment such as the HSRC. Dr Visagie assumed a position at the HSRC in 2017 after serving as the Director of Economic Planning and Research at the Department of Economic Development, Environmental Affairs and Tourism in the Eastern Cape from 2012 to 2016. Before this he was finishing his Master and PhD studies where he lectured at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University.
Dr Visagie completed his PhD in Economics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal where he won the prestigious Founders' medal from the Economic Society of South Africa (ESSA) for his thesis on the development of the middle class in South Africa. Dr Visagie also received ESSA awards for his Master and Honour level research dissertations. He completed his undergraduate studies in Politics, Philosophy and Economics. Dr Visagie has published more than ten peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters whilst contributing to many research papers and reports at the HSRC. Dr Visagie is also involved in publishing regularly in online news and print media including articles for the Mail and Guardian, Daily Maverick, Sunday Times, Financial Mail, Business Day and The Conversation. Similarly, one of Dr Visagie?s policy briefs about the middle class in South Africa on Econ3x3.org has reached nearly 100,000 reads, which is a record on that platform. He has been an active member of the Public Sector Economist Forum where he was invited to present a keynote address in 2019.