Recent research highlights the considerable potential of industrial policy to support structural transformation in sub-Saharan Africa. Given the importance of the state in industrial policy, this paper considers the implications for these discussions...
Ethiopia represents an excellent case study of recent industrial policy experimentation in Africa. The country is well known for its successful promotion of the cut-flower industry through business-government co-ordination. What is less known is that...
The paper looks at the evolution of industry in Uganda examining drivers and constraints since the pre-colonial period in the 1940s to date. It is argued that the state played a central role in industrialization during the pre-colonial and immediate...
Recent writing on industrial policy stresses the need for coordination between the public and private sectors. This paper examines the performance of one such coordination mechanism, Presidential Investors’ Advisory Councils, in Ethiopia, Senegal...
Over the past decade, Africa has been experiencing an economic resurgence. Yet, the continent is facing several difficult challenges and many economies of the region continue to be among the least competitive in the world. Africa’s competitiveness is...
Industrial policy is back. Advocates for industrial policy argue that the important question is not whether such policies should be applied at all, but how to design and implement them. For the extractive industries this development poses a challenge...
The phased elimination of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement has been one of the most compelling trade policy reforms of the early twenty-first century, and has brought in significant changes in the industrial structures of the countries of the global south...
Senegal is a typical sub-Saharan economy, which conducted an import substitution policy over 1960-86, followed by a policy of support for the private sector and liberalization of the economy. It suffers from a low level of economic development...
African countries are facing great opportunities but also formidable challenges in accelerating economic growth and sustaining a high level of economic performance. The experiences of East Asian countries may offer valuable insights for African...
South Africa has exhibited tepid economic growth over the past twenty years as well as high levels of income inequality characteristic of a middle income country growth trap. This paper compares and contrasts South Africa’s growth trap relative to...
This paper draws on both successful and failing cases of industrialization in China to analyse the role of local governments in fostering the growth of light manufacturing. The broad spectrum of support types and the intimate knowledge of enterprise...
African countries have sought to replicate the success of East Asia by implementing special economic zones. Despite decades of international experience, there remains no blueprint for successful special economic zone policies, and the majority of...
Despite the use of industrial policies to stimulate economic growth by several successful developers, latecomers have faced mixed experiences. Hence, this paper analyses the industrial policy experience of the electronics industry in Malaysia. A...
Three major policy regimes, namely import substitution, market liberalization and export promotion have greatly influenced Kenyan industrialization since independence in 1963. Overall, import substitution strategy was successful in establishing some...
In this scooping paper on the Tunisian economy we review the historical background of the economy which has undergone substantial structural change since independence in 1956. In particular we emphasize that past record of consistent growth has often...
A sustainable pathway for Africa in the twenty-first century is laid out in the setting of the development of innovation capabilities and the capture of latecomer advantages. Africa has missed out on these possibilities in the twentieth century while...
The structure of the Nigerian economy is typical of an underdeveloped country. The primary sector, in particular, the oil and gas sector, dominates the gross domestic product accounting for over 95 per cent of export earnings and about 85 per cent of...
Industrial policies have played an important role in successful development. Through these policies, governments intervene in the market’s sectoral allocation of resources and choice of technologies. Earlier industrial policies had a narrow remit and...
Over the past decade significant hydrocarbon discoveries have been made across East Africa. Unsurprisingly, the respective governments countries have...
The transfer from an import-substitution to an export-orientation strategy has been in effect in Vietnam since the reform process, Doi Moi, necessitating the reformulation of macroeconomic, trading and sectoral policies. As a result, the industry...
This paper chronicles the evolution of industry in Ghana over the post-independence era from an inward over-protected import substitution industrialization strategy of 1960-83 to an outward liberalized strategy during 1984-2000, and since 2001, to...
After the Second World War, Mozambique went through a series of transformations, from an incipient industrializing colonial society to an independent country with a central planned economy, plus a regional and internal war, and finally from 1994...
This paper examines China and Africa co-operation from the angle of structural transformation as a major driver of growth and job creation. Being a bit ahead in the structural transformation process, China can provide ideas, tacit knowledge...
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.
Six Southeast Asian countries (Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Thailand) defied Gunnar Myrdal’s pessimistic prognosis in his 1968 volume, Asian Drama, regarding their prospects for development. In...
Part of Book Extractive Industries
This paper evaluates structural change, inequality dynamics, and industrial policy in South Africa between 1960 and the present day. We find that South Africa experienced growth-enhancing structural transformation until the early 1970s, before...
Large-scale business subsidies tied to national industrial development promotion programmes are notoriously difficult to study and are often inseparable from the political economy of large government programmes. We use the Tunisian national firm...
We focus on special characteristics of the manufacturing sector, in terms of employment generation and productivity growth, that enable the rapid, resilient economic catch-up of developing countries. We consider the ‘developer’s dilemma’ and the...
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