398pp., b/w & colour illus., paperback, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg, 2025

ISBN: 9781869145743

Vishnu Padayachee (1952-2021) joined the University of the Witwatersrand in 2014 and was Distinguished Professor in Economics and Derek Schrier and Cecily Cameron Chair in Development Economics in the Wits School of Economics and Finance at the time of his death.

In the 1980s he worked closely with the democratic trade union movement and was a member of the Economic Trends group and of the Macroeconomic Research Group. President Nelson Mandela appointed him to the board of the South African Reserve Bank in 1995. Initially based at the University of Durban Westville, he served as Special Assistant to the Vice-Chancellor in the early 1990s. Later he was Research Professor and then Head of the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

He was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Economics from Rhodes University in 2018 for making “an exceptionally distinguished contribution to the post-apartheid transformation of South African economic policy in ways that serve the economic and social needs of all South Africans and marginalised black South Africans, in particular.” He remains a life-time fellow and Professor Emeritus at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, a fellow of the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies, and a life-time fellow of the Society of Scholars at Johns Hopkins University.

Contributions include:

"Vishnu Padayachee: Themes and perspectives" by Rajend Mesthrie, Robert van Niekerk and Imraan Valodia

"National Development and the Enlightenment Gaze: A joint project with Vishnu Padayachee" by Bradley Bordiss

"The Economics of the Feasible in a Democratic South Africa: Anglo-American and economic policy" by Gavin Keeton

"An Unfinished Research Agenda on the South African Reserve Bank: Linking academic scholarship and monetary policy" by Jannie Roussouw

"South African Capitalism: Conversations with Vishnu" by John Keith Hart

"Heterodox Economics and Macroeconomic Policy-making: A critical review of Vishnu Padayachee's contribution to fiscal policy: by Seeraj Mohamed

"Locating Vishnu as Engaged Political Economist: A personal journey" by Ben Fine

""The Engaged Intellectual, the State and Civil Society in the Post-Zuma Era: Lessons from the Eastern Cape" by Janet Cherry

"Graduate and Research Outputs and Efficiency in South African Universities" by Pundy Pillay.

Rajend Mesthrie is Emeritus Professor and former National Research Foundation Research Chair in Language, Migration & Social Change, based at the University of Cape Town.

Robert van Niekerk is the Professor and Chair of Public Governance at Wits School of Governance.

Imraan Valodia is Professor of Economics, Pro Vice Chancellor (Climate, Sustainability and Inequality) and Director of the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand.

POLITICAL ECONOMY AND CRITICAL ENGAGEMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA, essays in honour of Vishnu Padayachee

: Mesthrie (R.), van Niekerk (R.) & Valodia (I.) eds.

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