Murray Leibbrandt is Professor of Economics at the University of Cape Town and a Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow at UNU-WIDER. In this capacity, and as Director of the Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, he led the South African arm of UNU-WIDER’s Inequality in the Giants project that resulted in the 2021 book, Inequality in the Developing World.
Professor Leibbrant’s research focuses on South African poverty, inequality and labour market dynamics using survey data and, in particular, panel data. He has written extensively on these topics in a wide range of journal articles, book chapters, and books. He was a Principal Investigator of South Africa’s national household panel survey, the National Income Dynamics Study, from 2007 to 2019. Currently, Professor Leibbrandt directs the African Centre of Excellence for Inequality Research and leads the inequality sub-component of a joint project between UNU-WIDER and the National Treasury, “Southern Africa – Towards Inclusive Economic Development”.