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 government revenue between 2011 and 2012. The...

We 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-productivity firms, not diffused more rapidly? We...

There has recently been a resurgence of interest in industrial policy. This paper examines the choices, implementation processes, and outcomes of the Ethiopian present industrial policy. The country represents an excellent case study of recent industrial policy experimentation in Africa as it is...

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 onwards, a multi-party democracy with a mix of...

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...

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...

This paper uses newly available firm-level tax data to evaluate the market structure in South African manufacturing sectors in the period 2010-12. To describe the market structure we compute markups for South African manufacturing firms and concentration indexes for 4-digit manufacturing...