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Economist Johannes Jordaan has over 20 years’ experience ranging over several aspects of economics, including lecturing, socio-economic impact assessment studies, economic impact modelling, cost escalation modelling, macroeconomic modelling, policy analysis, economic forecasting and general economic research. 

Johannes holds a PhD in economics from the University of Pretoria which he obtained in 2004. He also has a bachelor’s degree in town and regional planning. 

Johannes has written or co-authored various published and unpublished research papers and has presented at various national and international economics and econometric conferences. He also regularly assists with the blind peer reviewing of economics journal articles and has contributed opinion pieces in Beeld, Die Burger, Volksblad and SA Mining.  

He was a senior lecturer at the University of Pretoria until 2006, where he lectured economics and econometrics to students from first year to master’s level and has supervised MCom and MBA theses of numerous students. Johannes was a senior economist and manager at KPMG between 2007 and 2009, where he led economic research and modelling, and was a research fellow at Unisa until 2014. 

Johannes has been managing his own economics consultancy, Economic Modelling Solutions (EMS), since 2011, where he focuses on economic modelling, forecasting and research. He has also been an associate econometrician at Econometrix Pty (Ltd) since 2012, where he performs a number of economic modelling, forecasting and analysis responsibilities. He has also assisted Group Economics at Investec with modelling various domestic and international variables in line with IFRS 9 requirements since 2016.  

Johannes is a member of the Economic Society of South Africa (ESSA) as well as the South African Association for Energy Economics (SAAEE). He has been a participant in the Netwerk24 (Sake) Economist of the Year competition since 2012 and also provides economic forecasts on a regular basis to Bloomberg News South Africa and Reuters Economic poll. Johannes also attends the South African Reserve Bank’s Economic Roundtable on invitation. 

Johannes received the Netwerk24 (Sake Beeld) Economist of the Year award for 2019 and 2020 and the Thomson Reuters Economist of the Year award in 2017 (and also received the award for the best forecaster of South Africa’s GDP growth). He was also the most accurate forecaster of SA GDP according to FocusEconomics in 2017 and received the award for most accurate forecaster of inflation in 2018 according to FocusEconomics. (He came second in forecasting the current account and was the third best forecaster overall.)  

He received the Momentum prize for the best economics paper in personal finance at the Personal Finance and Tax Conference in 2012, the Department of Economics (at UP) prize for the best departmental junior researcher for 2005 and the BEPA prize for the best outstanding achievement in economics at the doctoral level at UP in 2005.  

Johannes was selected to participate in the 34th ISC (International Student Committee) Symposium at the University of St Gallen, Switzerland in 2004 and was a finalist in the 2001 Old Mutual/Nedbank National Budget Competition in Cape Town. Johannes also participated in seven United Nations workshops between 2001 and 2003 that focused on enhancing macroeconomic modelling in Africa.