See my Google Scholar and ResearchGate profiles. These are generally the most reliable sources for published work. The list below also contains unpublished work but is not always up-to-date.
NB: after quite a few experiences with ‘intellectual appropriation’ by other academics, I am a lot more cagey about publicising unpublished work; it’s safe to assume that I have many more draft papers than is reflected below.
BOOKS
The Incentivised University: Scientific Revolutions, Policies, Consequences, Springer, 2022.
JOURNAL ARTICLES
“Randomised Trials As A Dead-End For African Development”, Africa Development, 49(1): 45-70, 2024.
“Is economics credible? A critical appraisal of three examples from microeconomics”, Journal of Economic Methodology, Special Issue on ‘The Soul of Economics’, 30(2): 157-175, 2023.
“Econometric methods and Reichenbach’s principle”, Synthese, 200(3): 1-21, 2022.
“Evidence for a YETI? A cautionary tale from South Africa’s youth employment tax incentive”, Development and Change, 52(6): 1301-1342, 2021.
“Masks, mechanisms and Covid-19: the limitations of randomized trials in pandemic policymaking”, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences Topical Collection “Seeing Clearly Through COVID-19: Current and future questions for the history and philosophy of the life sciences”, 43(2): 1-5, 2021.
“The dangers of performative scientism as the alternative to antiscientific policymaking: A critical, preliminary assessment of South Africa’s Covid-19 response and its consequences”, World Development, 140, 2021.
“The implications of a fundamental contradiction in advocating randomized trials for policy”, World Development (Symposium on Experimental Approaches in Development and Poverty Alleviation), 127, 2020.
“Reply to “Research incentives and research output”: a caution on quantity incentives and the use of economic models for higher education policy”, Higher Education, 78(3): 1129-1138, 2019.
“The economics and philosophy of the brain drain: A critical perspective from the periphery”, South African Journal of Philosophy (special issue: debating brain drain), 36(1), March 2017: 115-132. [link]
“Academics as rent seekers: distorted incentives in higher education, with reference to the South African case”, International Journal of Educational Development, 52, January 2017: 58-67. [accepted manuscript, link]
“Interaction and external validity: obstacles to the policy relevance of randomized evaluations”, World Bank Economic Review, 29(supp 1): 217-225. [link] [This is a short version of the paper presented at ABCDE – see below]
“The transmission of longevity across generations: The case of the settler Cape Colony”, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 35, March 2014: 105-119. (with Patrizio Piraino, Jeanne Cilliers and Johan Fourie) [link]
“Another problem in the estimation of intergenerational income mobility”, Economics Letters, 108 (3), September 2010: 291-295. [link]
BOOK CHAPTERS
“The Unacknowledged Normative Content of Randomised Control Trials in Economics and Its Dangers”, Chapter 9 in The Positive and the Normative in Economic Thought, Badei and Grivaux (eds). Routledge, pp. 167-189, 2022.
“Randomised trials in economics”, Chapter 5 in The Modern Guide to Philosophy of Economics, H. Kincaid and D. Ross (eds). Edward Elgar, pp.90-126, 2021.
“The Black Middle Class: The Challenges of Joining Two Economies”, chapter in Making Mistakes, Righting Wrongs, Insights into Black Economic Empowerment, Duma Gqubule, ed., Jonathan Ball and KMM Review Publishing, p.187-220, 2006.
BOOK REVIEWS
WORKING PAPERS
“Randomised trials for policy: A review of the external validity of treatment effects”, SALDRU Working Paper 127, 2014. [Most recent version for ABCDE conference here. This review is currently being broadened and revised to include additional references]
“The transmission of longevity across generations: The case of the settler Cape Colony”, SALDRU Working Paper 113, 2013.(with Patrizio Piraino, Jeanne Cilliers and Johan Fourie)
“Econometric methods and Reichenbach’s principle”, SALDRU Working Paper 85, 2012.
“Begging the Question: Permanent Income and Social Mobility”, ERSA Working Paper 75, September 2007.
UNPUBLISHED WORKING PAPERS
“Pensions and Priors: A South African Case Study”, 2006 term paper later updated and presented at CASASP workshop in Oxford, 2007 [paper]
[More coming soon]
OTHER PUBLICATIONS/LENGTHY COMMENTARY
“From framework to implementation: what will become of the NDP”, in The National Development Plan: 7 critical appraisals, AIDC (Cape Town), 2013.
“The Economist’s Burden”, Oxonian Review of Books, Winter 2007, vol 7:1 [Review of The Bottom Billion, by Paul Collier].
PRESENTATIONS
“Considering the problem of external validity: when can evidence from one context be useful for decision-making in another?”, Evidence 2016, Pretoria, 21 September 2016. [slides]
“Extrapolation in economics”, XII Conference of the International Network for Economic Method, Cape Town, 20 November 2015. [slides]
“When is economics bullshit?”, XII Conference of the International Network for Economic Method, Cape Town, 20 November 2015.
“When is economics bullshit?”, Metaphysics, Epistemology and Philosophy of Science Symposium (MEPSS), Durban, 27 June 2015.
“Implications of the External Validity Debate for Systematic Reviews: A Perspective from the Economic Literature on Class Size Effects”, Campbell Colloquium 2014, Queen’s University, Belfast, 19th June 2014. [presentation]
“Buridan’s Ass in the Lab? A cautionary note on endowment effect experiments”, Second Haverford Meeting on Behavioral and Experimental Economics, Haverford College, 7th June 2014.
“Randomised trials for policy: A review of the external validity of treatment effects”, Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics (ABCDE), Washington D.C., 3rd June, 2014. [presentation]
“A critical reassessment of South African public education expenditure”, Economic Society of South Africa Biennial Conference, Bloemfontein, 26th September 2013. [presentation]
“On the external validity of class size effects”, CEMAPRE Workshop on the Economics and Econometrics of Education, Lisbon, 18th January, 2013.
“Causal interaction, external validity and randomized trials”, Evidence and Causality in the Sciences conference, University of Kent, Canterbury, 5th September 2012.
“Buridan’s Ass in the Lab? A cautionary note on endowment effect experiments”, Experimental Science Association International Conference, New York University, 22nd June 2012.
“External validity and randomized trials: the case of class size and educational outcomes”, University of Stellenbosch, 19th March 2012.
“Causal complexes and randomised trials: the example of class size and educational outcomes”, Economic Society of South Africa biennial conference, Stellenbosch, 5th September 2011.
“Behavioural public economics and the prevention of exploitation”, Economic Society of South Africa biennial conference, Stellenbosch, 6th September 2011.
“Instrumental variables, `bad control’ and multicollinearity: a causal perspective”, Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit seminar, University of Cape Town, 23rd February 2011.
“A Reassessment of the Money Pump Argument”, African Econometric Society 14th Annual Conference on Econometric Modeling in Africa, Abuja, 4th July 2009.
“Pensions and Priors: A South African Case Study”, presentation at CASASP/DSA workshop: Social Protection and Ideologies of Welfare in Southern Africa, Green College, 6th December, 2007. [presentation]
“Another Bias in Quantitative Assessments of Intergenerational Mobility”, African Econometric Society 12th Annual Conference on Econometric Modeling in Africa, Cape Town, 4th July 2007.
“Looking for the black middle class in post-apartheid South Africa”, paper presented at HSRC/Africa Institute Annual Social Science Conference, Johannesburg, 28 September 2006.
“A Heuristic Solution to the Allais Paradox, And its Implications”, presentation at the International Conference on the Foundations and Applications of Utility, Risk and Decision Theory (FUR) XII, Rome, 24 June 2006.