Jugal Mahabir

Director, Public and Environmental Economics Research Centre, University of Johannesburg, South Africa

Jugal Mahabir is the Director at the Public and Environmental Economics Research Centre (PEERC) based at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. PEERC is dedicated to sound, credible and impactful research in the fields of public and environmental economics towards the goal of sustainable development through sound public policy, with focus primarily on the Southern African region. PEERC has undertaken research for the South African Local Government Association (SALGA), the Financial and Fiscal Commission (FFC) and the Water Research Commission in South Africa (WRC), amongst others.

Prior to him joining PEERC, Jugal worked at the National Treasury of South Africa and the FFC. During his time at the National Treasury and the FFC, he was mainly involved in research around local government financing, including sub-national taxation and intergovernmental fiscal transfers. He was instrumental in the introduction of the sharing of revenue from the general fuel levy between national government and metropolitan municipalities and was part of the task team that introduced the current local government equitable share formula, the primary fiscal transfer that accrues to South Africa’s 257 municipalities.

He has also consulted with several government departments and organisations in South Africa on various issues, including research on debt owed to municipalities (SALGA), the design of a freight transport demand model (South African National Department of Transport), exploration of new taxes for local government (South African Cities Network), the formulation of a framework and guidelines to guide municipalities to design indigent policies towards the implementation of the country’s free basic services policies (South African Department of Cooperative Governance), critically analysing the intergovernmental supervision framework of local government (FFC) and estimating the efficiency of water utilities in South Africa (WRC), amongst others.  

Jugal’s publications focuses on the impacts of grant funding on local government performance, the efficiency of sub-national government expenditures and estimating the revenue potential of municipalities. He holds a Bachelor of Social Science (Honours) degree in Economics from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a Master of Commerce (awarded cum laude) in Economics from the University of Johannesburg.