BIO

Imraan Valodia is a Senior Research Fellow at the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and is also a Research Associate with the Gender Equality and the Economy program at The Levy Institute. His research interests include international trade, gender and economic policy, and the informal economy. He has published widely in the most respected international and South African economics and development journals, including the Journal of African Economies, Development and Change, African Affairs, Development Southern Africa, and Transformation. He is involved in policy research with a number of government departments and NGOs in South Africa, including the South African Women’s Budget Initiative. He worked previously for the Trade Union Research Project (TURP), doing economic policy research for the democratic trade union movement in South Africa. Valodia is a member of Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), a global research-policy network that seeks to improve the status of the working poor, especially women, in the informal economy; and the International Working Group on Gender, Macroeconomics, and International Economics (GEM-IWG), where he is incorporating the informal economy in macroeconomic models.Valodia holds an M.Sc. in International Trade and Finance from Lancaster University and will shortly be awarded a PhD in Economics from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.