
44 UNU-WIDER articles, publications, projects, experts...
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Working Paper
The Evolution of Industry in UgandaThe 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...
Journal Article
Industry Switching in Developing CountriesFirm turnover (i.e., firm entry and exit) is a well-recognized source of sector-level productivity growth. In contrast, the role and importance of firms that switch activities from one sector to another is not well understood. Firm switchers are...
Journal Special Issue
Southern Growth Engines and Technology GiantsFast-growing developing countries have emerged as an important destination and source of trade, investments and technology. Furthermore, trade between developing countries has grown rapidly over the last decades, and is becoming more diversified...
Working Paper
European Transition at TwentyThis study gauges the status of transition in the formerly centrally planned economies of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, using a broad approach that compares countries with respect to their business environment, competition, and managerial...
Working Paper
Determinants of Industrial EmbeddednessRecent developments in policy initiatives as well as some current practical events have combined to put the spotlight on the issue of industrial embeddedness in sub-Saharan Africa. Though extant research documents some stylized facts, as determinants...
Working Paper
Industry Switching in Developing CountriesFirm turnover (i.e. firm entry and exit) is a well-recognized source of sector level productivity growth across developing and developed countries. In contrast, the role and importance of firms switching activities from one sector to another is...
Working Paper
Efficiency of Commercial Banks in Sub-Saharan AfricaUtilizing the stochastic frontier approach, this study conducts a comparative analysis of profit efficiency and cost inefficiency of commercial banks operating in 29 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries by bank ownership (domestic bank, SSA foreign...
Working Paper
Learning to Export and Learning by ExportingIn this study, we investigate the relationship between exporting and firm performance using a longer panel dataset of Ethiopian manufacturing firms for the period 1996−2009. We test two hypotheses regarding exporting: selection into exporting versus...
Working Paper
Globalization, Reform and the Informal SectorThe objective of the paper is to understand the transforming relationship between the formal and informal sector in a liberalizing open developing economy. There are various facets in this relationship, and we focus on three essential aspects. First...
Working Paper
Scoping Study on the Evolution of Industry in GhanaThis 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...
Working Paper
Mozambique’s IndustrializationAfter 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...
Working Paper
Development as DiffusionWe consider economic development of sub-Saharan Africa from the perspective of slow convergence of productivity, both across sectors and firms within sectors. Why have ‘productivity enclaves’, islands of high productivity in a sea of smaller low...
Working Paper
Industrial Development and Growth in NigeriaThe 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...
Working Paper
Collective Action and Bilateral Interaction in Ghanaian Entrepreneurial NetworksThis paper focuses on the networks of business-related contacts that are built and maintained by manufacturing entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa. It describes the various functions that such networks perform, explaining why each function is...