Prof Philippe Burger is a Professor of Economics and Head of the Department of Economics at the University of the Free State (UFS). He was a 2016/17 Fulbright Exchange Scholar at the Center for Sustainable Development, Earth Institute, at Columbia University (New York).

He was president of the Economic Society of South Africa from September 2012 to October 2014. Prof Burger is also a member of the South African Statistics Council, which oversees the work of Statistics SA. His publications include three books and numerous academic articles on fiscal rules and fiscal sustainability, public private partnerships and macroeconomic and economic development policy.

Together with International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff he co-authored two IMF working papers. In 2009 the IMF invited him to spend a month at the IMF as a visiting scholar. In 2007, 2010 and 2012 he was seconded to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris to work on public private partnerships and capital budgeting. In October 2011 he joined an OECD mission to Indonesia to conduct a regulatory review of Indonesia. He was a member of the Panel of Experts of the South African National Treasury, in which capacity he co-authored a 20-year review of South African fiscal policy since 1994.