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Publications (44)
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This study examines the effects of mining productivity shocks on the formal–informal duality in manufacturing and services. Using firm census data from 2014 for Ghana, we measure the rates of informality along extensive (unregistered firms) and intensive (registered firms hiring labourers 'off the...
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Using the Economic Transformation Database, this paper attempts to assess the magnitude of structural transformation and the effects of sectoral shifts due to structural transformation on the labour market performance of 18 sub-Saharan African countries over the period from 1990 to 2018. The first...
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There is a dearth of evidence on the evolution of occupational health in the developing world and on the extent to which it has been influenced by (1) the pattern of structural transformation in these economies and (2) integration with global markets.In this study, I compile a rich database on...
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Sub-Saharan African economies have experienced accelerated economic growth in the past two decades. In this paper we study the impact of trade-induced structural change on employment and value-added shares in sub-Saharan African economies. We find that sub-Saharan African economies have increasingly...
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The services sector is dominant and continues to experience unprecedented growth in many developing economies. However, in-depth empirical analysis of the drivers of services sector growth acceleration is limited. This paper examines and identifies the underlying factors that explain services sector...
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– Subnational insights
This paper aims to revisit the pace and patterns of structural change in Morocco with a renewed perspective focusing on subnational trends to document the macro patterns. In that perspective, we first build a within-country sectoral longitudinal dataset covering employment and value added (VA) that...
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This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the supply and demand side of structural transformation in Turkey. Using the GGDC/UNU-WIDER Economic Transformation Database, we find that labour productivity improvements explain more than half of economic growth in the period 1980–2021. This is...
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– Empirical evidence from low- and middle-income countries
Digitalization and shifting patterns of globalization are fast changing the rules of the game for countries embarking on a path of industrialization. In this study, we empirically examine the impact of digitalization and global value chains on structural transformation using a cross-country panel of...
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– Evidence from the China shock
How does international trade affect structural transformation in developing countries? We use data on sectoral allocation of labour and value-added in 46 developing economies over the period 1995–2017 and exploit for identification plausibly exogenous variation in manufacturing imports from China...
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– Evidence from developing countries
Which structural reforms affect labour productivity growth in developing countries? This paper answers this question by combining the local projections method and the inverse probability weighted regression adjustment (LP-IPWRA) method. We find that financial reforms, trade reforms, and product...
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– Do structural reforms matter?
While the negative effects of the 2008 global financial crisis on labour productivity are still fresh in people’s minds, the COVID-19 pandemic raises concerns that productivity will continue to decline. To boost labour productivity and regain economic performance, there is an empirical consensus on...
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This paper proposes an empirical framework that relates poverty reduction to production growth. We use the GGDC/UNU-WIDER Economic Transformation Database to measure the contribution to growth of productivity improvements within sectors and structural change—the reallocation of workers across...
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This paper examines industrialization trends in developing countries. It uses the GGDC/UNU-WIDER Economic Transformation Database, which provides time series of employment and real and nominal value added annually by 12 sectors in 51 countries for the period 1990–2018. Until the early 2000s de...
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– The role of firm-level relationships in knowledge transfers in Africa and Asia
This study combines evidence from interviews in seven countries with (i) government institutions responsible for attracting foreign direct investment (FDI), (ii) 102 multinational enterprises (MNEs), and (iii) 226 domestic firms linked to these foreign affiliates as suppliers, customers, or...
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– The case for Special Economic Zones in Africa
Firms tend to cluster in close geographic proximity to each other to benefit from reduced transport costs, shared inputs, and productivity spillovers due to learning and technology transfers. Evidence from low-income countries suggests that such agglomeration economies may be substantial in...
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– Evidence from Senegalese Manufacturing Plant
The increasing quantity of literature investigating the impact of trade openness on firm efficiency has not yet provided a definite prediction of the direction of causality. This paper investigates how the relationship between exporting and productivity impacts on manufacturing sectors in Senegal...
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– Implications for the Long Run
Productivity gains are the prime engine of economic growth. This paper uses a rich amount of firms’ accounting information from the Single Information Collecting Centre in Senegal over the period 1998-2011. To investigate the two main obstacles to growth, poor education and poor access to...
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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, hindering the process of economic diversification, and...
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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 primary industries but led to reduced domestic...
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– Africa’s Presidential Investors’ Advisory Councils
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, Tanzania, and Uganda. It finds that the councils...
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– The Case of Ethiopian Manufacturing
In 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 learning by exporting. According to the selection...
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– Evidence from the Tunisian Manufacturing Sector
In this paper, we explore the link between firm productivity and exporting using three firm level datasets of 1323 Tunisian manufacturing firms from 2004 to 2006. In particular, we examine whether more productive firms self-select into export markets, and whether exporters achieve productivity...
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– Challenges and the Way Forward
Tanzania’s industrial sector has evolved through various stages since independence in 1961, from nascent and undiversified to state-led import substitution industrialization, and subsequently to de-industrialization under the structural adjustment programmes and policy reforms. The current...
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This paper addresses the issue of poor data on Mozambican manufacturing firms. A new dataset (the merged manufacturing database) is merged from provincial industrial databases from each of Mozambique’s 11 provinces. The new dataset is assessed by comparing it to the latest manufacturing enterprise...
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– Cambodia’s Experience
One feature of exporting firms in Cambodia is that they are not of domestic origin but are foreign firms that export from the moment they are established in Cambodia. In this paper we examine the extent to which the presence of foreign-owned export firms impacts on the productivity of domestic firms...
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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 sector has experienced gradual growth as the country...
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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 the private sector-led accelerated industrial...
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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 masked inequality, regional disparities and high...
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– Further Evidence from Ghana
This paper provides evidence on the nature of returns to education in Ghana and confirms the emerging empirical literature on the convexity of returns to education in Ghana. Using a basic Mincerian, model we find that returns to education more than triples from primary to secondary level or higher–...
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In this paper, we examine the pattern of spatial concentration of manufacturing industries observed in Tunisia and explore the factors driving firms’ choices of location at the provincial level. We consider specialization and competition indicators as the driving forces and also examine the extent...
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– Evidence from Vietnam
In this paper we explore the extent to which firms experience productivity spillovers from clustering using a rich data source from Vietnam for 2002 to 2007, a period of significant transition. We address issues of simultaneity, self-selection and endogenous location choice of firms in an estimation...
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– The Role of Ownership and Innovation in the Case of Vietnam
In this paper, we investigate the relationship between exporting and productivity in the case of Vietnam using an extensive firm level panel dataset for the period 2005-11. We separate out productivity effects of exporting due to self-selection allowing us to identify the extent to which firms learn...
Displaying 32 of 44 results