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| Title: | Services inputs and firm productivity in sub-Saharan Africa: evidence from firm-level data |
| Authors: | Arnold, Jens Matthias Mattoo, Aaditya Narciso, Gaia |
| Year: | 2008 |
| Periodical: | Journal of African Economies |
| Volume: | 17 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Pages: | 578-599 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Subsaharan Africa |
| Subjects: | industrial productivity service industries |
| External link: | https://jae.oxfordjournals.org/content/17/4/578.full.pdf |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the relationship between the productivity of African manufacturing firms and their access to services inputs. It uses data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey for over 1,000 firms in ten Sub-Saharan African countries - Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia - to calculate the total factor productivity of firms. The Enterprise Surveys also contain measures of firms' access to telecommunications, electricity and financial services. The availability of these measures at the firm level, both as subjective and objective indicators, allows for an exploitation of the variation in services performance at the subnational regional level. Furthermore, by using the regional variation in services performance, it is also possible to address concerns about the possible endogeneity of the services variables. The results show a significant and positive relationship between firm productivity and service performance in all three services sectors analysed. The paper thus provides support for the argument that improvements in services industries contribute to enhancing the performance of downstream economic activities, and thus are an essential element of a strategy for promoting growth and reducing poverty. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract] |
