Boosting Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa : Policies and Institutions to Promote Efficiency / Cesar Calderon.

Format:

Book

Government document

Author/Creator:

Calderón, César.

Series:

World Bank e-Library.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Agriculture productivity.

Farm productivity.

Firm productivity.

Fragility.

Policy Agenda.

Productivity growth.

Local Subjects:

Agriculture productivity.

Farm productivity.

Firm productivity.

Fragility.

Policy Agenda.

Productivity growth.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (174 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Washington, D.C. : The World Bank, 2021.

System Details:

data file

Summary:

Economic growth in the Sub-Saharan Africa region has been plagued by a series of shocks-wars, political instability, natural disasters, epidemics, terms-of-trade deterioration, and sudden stops in capital inflows-that have had lingering effects on productivity and growth. Within the overall productivity gap of the region are substantial differences across the sectors of economic activity and production units. Boosting Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa: Policies and Institutions to Promote Efficiency documents the productivity trends in Sub-Saharan Africa in three different dimensions, assessing productivity at the aggregate level, the sectoral level, and the establishment level. It characterizes the evolution of productivity in the region relative to other countries and regions, as well as country groups in Africa, classified by their degree of natural resource abundance and condition of fragility. The volume suggests that the persistence of the productivity gap in Africa vis-a-vis the technological frontier can be attributed to the slow accumulation of physical and human capital relative to the region's growing population, as well as the poor allocation of these resources. These allocative inefficiencies are the outcome of policies and institutions that introduce distortions in the decision-making process of individuals. Hence, the volume assesses the implications of production decisions across agricultural farms and manufacturing firms. It presents evidence on aggregate productivity from the perspective of production units, using recent household surveys for farmers and firm-level surveys for select countries, as well as frontier estimation techniques. It documents the extent of severe resource misallocation across agricultural and manufacturing production units. These distortions decelerate the growth of the production units, disincentivize their adoption of productivity-enhancing technologies, and reduce the ability of their peers to learn new techniques. Boosting Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa highlights the adoption of digital technologies to reduce some of these market frictions. Mobile money has increased financial inclusion in several countries, and digital financial technologies have given individuals access to savings instruments and loan products. Enhancing access to credit can help individuals invest in schooling and overcome the costs of formality. The volume discusses further avenues of research that may provide additional insights on the productivity dynamics across countries in the region, and it identifies the different channels of policy transmission to enhance productivity. The empirical work presented can help to guide the design of policy in the region.

Contents:

Front Cover

Contents

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Abbreviations

1 Boosting Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa

Introduction

Sub-Saharan Africa's Long-Term Performance: Still Far from the Frontier

Sources of Productivity Growth

Dimensions of the Productivity Assessment

Data and Measurement Issues

Plan of the Volume

Notes

References

2 Needed: Boosting the Contribution of Total Factor Productivity

The Divergent Paths of Malaysia and Senegal

Development Accounting

Dismal Growth Performance: The Negligible Contribution of TFP Growth

Lagging Structural Transformation

3 Resource Misallocation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Firm-Level Evidence

Resource Misallocation in Agriculture

Resource Misallocation in Manufacturing

4 Policies and Institutions that Distort Resource Allocation in ­Sub-Saharan Africa

Land Market Imperfections

Agricultural Subsidies

Taxation and Informality

Trade Policy

Infrastructure

Financial Market Imperfections

5 Agenda for Future Research

A Output per Worker, Factor Accumulation, and Total Productivity

B Country Productivity Analysis in Sub-Saharan Africa

Boxes

Box 1.1 Building upon the World Bank's Productivity Research Agenda

Box 2.1 The Contribution of Natural Capital to Growth per Worker

Box 3.1 Resource Misallocation: Theoretical Underpinnings

Box 4.1 Land Institutions in Selected Sub-Saharan African Countries

Box 4.2 Trade Liberalization and Within-Firm Changes

Box 4.3 The Role of Transportation Infrastructure in Agriculture

Figures

Figure 1.1 Output per Worker in Sub-Saharan Africa and EAP5 Countries, Relative to the United States, 1960-2017.

Figure 1.2 Output per Worker in Sub-Saharan Africa versus Selected Country Groups, 1960-2016

Figure 1.3 Sources of Resource Misallocation That Reduce Total Factor Productivity

Figure 2.1 Outputs, Inputs, and Productivity Gaps between Malaysia and Senegal, 1960 and 2017

Figure 2.2 Relative Labor Productivity of Sub-Saharan African Countries, 1980 versus 2017

Figure 2.3 Sources of the Labor Productivity Gap between Sub-Saharan Africa and the United States, 1960-2017

Figure 2.4 Share of Labor Productivity Differences due to TFP in Sub-Saharan African Countries, 1980-89 versus 2010-17

Figure 2.5 Traditional Solow Decomposition of Labor Productivity Growth, Selected Regions and Country Groups, 1960-2017

Figure 2.6 Traditional Solow Decomposition of Labor Productivity Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, by Country Group and Period, 1961-2017

Figure B2.1.1 Decomposition of Labor Productivity Growth, Including Natural Capital, in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1996-2017

Figure 2.7 Decomposition of Labor Productivity Growth, including Role of Public Capital, in Selected Regions and Country Groups, 1961-2014

Figure 2.8 Sectoral Employment Shares, Sub-Saharan Africa versus Low- and Middle-Income Countries in Other Regions, 1990-2016

Figure 2.9 Sectoral Labor Productivity Relative to Agriculture: Sub-Saharan Africa and Low- and Middle-Income Countries in Other Regions, 1990-2016

Figure 3.1 Farmers' Productivity, by Input Use and Yields, in Uganda

Figure 3.2 Quantity versus Revenue Productivity across Selected Sub-Saharan African Countries

Figure 4.1 Government Spending on Agricultural Input Subsidies, by Type, in Sub-Saharan African Countries with the 10 Largest ISPs, 2014

Figure 4.2 Distribution of ISPC Taxpayers in Mozambique: 2010 versus 2015.

Figure 4.3 Size Distribution of Formal Firms versus All Firms and US Benchmark, Selected Sub-Saharan African Countries

Figure 4.4 Simulated Impact of Business Registration Reform on Occupational Choice and Income in Cameroon

Figure 4.5 Changes in Price Dispersion before and after Mobile-Phone Coverage in Niger's Grain Markets

Figure 4.6 Modeling the Impact of Financial Frictions on Sector-Level TFP

Maps

Map 2.1 Labor Productivity, by Country, Relative to the United States, 2017

Map 2.2 Capital-Labor Ratio, by Country, Relative to the United States, 2017

Map 2.3 Human Capital Index, by Country, 2017

Map 2.4 Efficiency of Production, by Country, Relative to the United States, 2017

Tables

Table 3.1 Gap between Actual and Potential Agricultural Yields, Selected Sub-Saharan African Countries, 2000

Table 3.2 Optimal Crop Choice and Aggregate Yield Gains, Selected Sub-Saharan African Countries, 2000

Table 3.3 Dispersion of Revenue and Quantity Productivity across Manufacturing Firms, Selected Sub-Saharan African Countries

Table 4.1 Policy-Related Sources of Potential Resource Misallocation Affecting Farm and Firm Productivity

Table 4.2 Impact of Land Rental on Resource Misallocation among Farmers in Ethiopia, 2013/14

Table 4.3 Effects of Actual and Efficient Distribution of Land, Capital, MPL, and MPK among Farms in Malawi

Table 4.4 Impact of Weather Shocks on Input Use and Output on Farmers in Uganda, 2009-14

Table A.1 Development Accounting in Sub-Saharan Africa and in Non-African Developing Countries, Relative to the United States, 1960-2017

Table A.2 Estimated Output Elasticities to Private and Public Capital, by Country Income Group

Table A.3 Classification of Sectors of Economic Activity

Table A.4 Classification of Sub-Saharan African Countries.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Other Format:

Print version: Calderon, Cesar Boosting Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa

ISBN:

9781464815515

OCLC:

1287130970

Publisher Number:

10.1596/978-1-4648-1550-8