Timothy Ngalande

Timothy Ngalande is a behavioral and development economist (PhD, Stellenbosch University, 2026) working at the intersection of academic research and financial-sector application in sub-Saharan Africa. As Research Manager at Mobalyz — South Africa’s largest dedicated taxi-industry financier, with over 28,000 vehicles financed — he designs and implements field experiments alongside faculty from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, Dartmouth College, and Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. The collaborative research examines how loan restructuring, driving behavioural incentives, and shock-smoothing mechanisms shape outcomes for South Africa’s 250,000+ minibus taxi operators: a sector that moves 15 million passengers daily yet remains largely outside formal financial markets.

His broader research agenda connects causal inference, field experiments, and economic history. His PhD examined how spatial segregation, labour discrimination, and railway infrastructure shaped long-run manufacturing productivity under Apartheid — drawing on quasi-experimental design, general equilibrium modelling, and growth accounting. He is a research affiliate of the Laboratory of Economics of Africa’s Past (LEAP) at Stellenbosch University.