My research combines rich historical records and quantitative methods to understand the determinants of societal change in South African history. The purpose is to inform both economic and social theory and contemporary policy-making.

I began to do this in my PhD dissertation, which investigated the nature, causes and distribution of wealth in eighteenth-century Cape society. I studied under the supervision of Jan Luiten van Zanden at Utrecht University and graduated in December 2012. At the World Economic History Congress 2015 in Kyoto, this manuscript won the 'Best Dissertation' prize.

Since then I have continued my interest in quantitative history, shifting focus towards the more recent periods: the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Because of our fractured past, I hope to nurture a new generation of economic and social historians who will use the tools of the data revolution and the digital humanities in innovative ways to investigate the histories of those people who, because of a scarcity of traditional sources, have often been neglected in South African historiography.

In 2021, I published an accessible introduction to global economic history written from a South African perspective (Tafelberg). Cambridge University Press published an international edition of Our Long Walk to Economic Freedom in August 2022. An Afrikaans version, Skatryk, was published in April 2023.