Martin Gustafsson is member of Research on Socio-Economic Policy (ReSEP), a unit linked to the Department of Economics at Stellenbosch University. He gained his PhD in economics with a dissertation titled ‘Education and country growth models’. Originally a school history teacher, he has worked since 2001 as a part-time researcher at the national authority for schools in South Africa (currently known as the Department of Basic Education). He has also produced work for other government and non-government organisations, including the UNESCO Institute for Statistics. His focus areas include the use of economic concepts in education planning, scenario modelling in education, the design of school funding policies, the economics of teacher pay, the demographics of schooling systems and cross-country comparisons of educational policy and performance.