africa

Yale Center for the Study of Globalization
World Bank. He received his BA from Haverford College in 1964 and his PhD from
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1969.
Haroon Bhorat
Professor of Economics; Director, Development Policy Research Unit, School of
Economics, University of Cape Town
Haroon Bhorat holds a prestigious South African National Research Chair, has
advised two previous South African Presidents, and is currently an economic advisor
to the Minister of Finance. His research interests cover labor economics, poverty,
and income distribution. He has published more than 150 academic journal articles,
book chapters, and working papers. He consults with international organizations
such as the International Labor Organization, the United Nations Development
Program, the World Bank, ratings agencies, and emerging-market fund managers.
He was a member of the UN Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, and
Head of Research for the UN’s High-Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development
Agenda. He studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was a Cornell
University research fellow.
Steven Block
Professor of International Economics, The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Steven Block is an economist studying food and agricultural policy, productivity,
household nutrition, and the political economy of both macroeconomic and agricultural
policy. He has published in diverse research areas. One series of his papers
addresses the effects of elections on macroeconomic policy in developing countries,
demonstrating for Africa in particular that the growing frequency of competitive
elections has motivated cycles in both fiscal and monetary policy. Another series
of papers addresses the determinants of child nutritional status in rural Indonesia,
focusing on the role of maternal nutrition knowledge. More recently, he has published
research on agricultural productivity in Africa, finding that an encouraging
recovery since the mid-1980s followed a prolonged decline in the first two decades
of independence. Along with co-author Robert Bates, Professor Block draws on a
new World Bank data set on trade interventions to provide political-economy explanations
for African governments’ persistent discrimination against agriculture. He
earned his BA from Brandeis University; Master of Public Policy from The John F.
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