LEAP Stellenbosch

09/03/2026

Join us this Friday for an interview with Tyler Cowen!

08/10/2025

Want to lead research on South Africa's economic past, present and future?

New postdocs available at Stellenbosch University!

19/10/2024

Our podcast with James Robinson, recorded two weeks before news of his Nobel Prize in Economics, is now available here or wherever you get your podcasts:

EPISODE 3: Jonathan and I speak to Nobel laureate James Robinson about black economic empowerment, the myth of the Weberian state, and the unique development pathways emerging in Africa...

14/10/2024

Today's Nobel Prize in Economics is rather personal.

With Dieter von Fintel, Calumet Links, Sophia Du Plessis and Department of Economics, Stellenbosch University.

https://www.ourlongwalk.com/p/institutions-and-generosity-matter

24/09/2024

Why do good intentions by international aid workers often lead to unintended negative outcomes? What led European settler farmers to frequently view African workers as lazy? How should African leaders grapple with the tension between embracing Western ideas without being dominated by them?

Jonathan Schoots and I discuss these – and many more – questions in the first podcast interview with Princeton University author and historian Bronwen Everill. Bronwen's latest book – Africonomics – is out in October.

The podcast episode is available on the Our Long Walk substack today (link below) or on your favourite podcast platform tomorrow.

EPISODE 1: Jonathan and I speak to Princeton historian Bronwen Everill about aid workers in Africa, the outside options of farm workers, compensation payments in Senegal, and why historians write well

16/08/2024

"Conquering territory was a fatal strategy. Despite the VOC’s increased revenue from tolls and taxes, the costs of protecting and administering the territories were always greater. Although the British East India Company did slightly better from these revenue streams – notably because of the capture, in 1757 at the Battle of Plassey, of the lucrative Indian market and the Chinese o***m trade – it would also come under frequent financial strain, and the company was dissolved by the mid-nineteenth century."

A preview of the fully updated Chapter 11 of Our Long Walk to Economic Freedom, to be released in January.

A fully updated Chapter 11 of Our Long Walk to Economic Freedom

16/07/2024

What makes us unique as a species?

We can learn.

How the field of cultural evolution can provide new insights into solving social, political and business challenges

25/05/2024

Magda Wierzycka, founder of Sygnia, is one of South Africa's most formidable business leaders. I spoke to her about her origins in communist Poland, and jobs, in South Africa, and what advice she has for Cyril Ramaphosa:

BUSINESS INTELLECTUAL: I interview Magda Wierzycka about communist Poland, revelations from the Zondo commission, AI's impact on jobs, BRICS, and her advice for the South African president

29/04/2024

Every year, South Africans celebrate on 27 April, commemorating the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994.

Today, in celebration of the Rainbow Nation's thirty-year anniversary, I am posting a revised (and slightly shortened) Chapter 36 (formerly Chapter 33) of Our Long Walk to Economic Freedom—a new second edition!

Here’s to South Africa at thirty! May the next thirty years have fewer … detours.

Surprise! Our Long Walk to Economic Freedom gets a second South African edition

15/04/2024

‘A tree without roots is just a piece of wood’ is an African proverb that sums up the importance of genealogy well. With the passing of Hans Heese, a great tree has fallen, one that was willing to challenge and redefine the myths of a nation’s history by searching for the truth.

On Hans Heese, genealogy and myth busting