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Africa's linkages in manufacturing global value chains are reasonably high compared with other developing regions. Still, linkage rates have declined steeply in recent years in non-resource rich countries in the region although they have increased sharply in countries that are rich in natural resources. Moreover, the level and dynamics of linkages to manufacturing global value chains vary significantly between countries within each group of natural resource endowments. The current levels, activity structure, and geographic configuration of linkage rates evolved over the past 20 years. In addition, these linkages cut across broad activity categories, including manufacturing textiles and apparel, metal products, transport equipment, and electrical goods. This paper analyzes the sources of the variation in linkage rates in the framework of an estimated gravity and linear probability model. It is shown that the domestic actors in these linkages are typically relatively large establishments (100 or more employees) and have been in operation for five years or longer. These manufacturers are also more likely to have foreign equity holders or foreign technology licenses. These findings should be seen in the light of policies that promote industrialization by facilitating integration into manufacturing global value chains at links that maximize job and productivity gains.

This paper investigates the sources of growth in manufacturing productivity in Cote D’Ivoire, Ethiopia and Tanzania in comparison with the case of Bangladesh. Based on the analysis of establishment census data since the mid-1990s, it finds that reallocation of market share between firms contributed substantially to productivity growth in each of the four countries, although to a varying extent. In Ethiopia, the impact of market share reallocations among survivors tended to be larger than those associated with increases in within-plant productivity. In addition, plant closure (or exit) boosted productivity more than new plant openings (or entry) did in the sense that the relative productivity of survivors (or continuing plants) was higher relative to that of closing plants (or exit cases) than it was relative to the productivity of newly opening plants (or new entrants). Reallocation of market share plays an important role in raising aggregate productivity in Côte d’Ivoire as well. But the pattern here is opposite to that in Ethiopia in that in Côte d’Ivoire entering (or newly opening) plants have larger impact on aggregate productivity growth than closing (or exiting) plants. Unlike the case with Cote D’Ivoire and of Ethiopia, the reallocation of market share among surviving plants is a smaller source of manufacturing productivity growth in Tanzania than the new plant openings and plant closure. The data suggest that the reallocation of market share among surviving plants and exiting plants has larger impact on productivity growth in Bangladesh than the productivity gap between new plants and survivors, as in the case of Ethiopia.

This paper uses plant-level, panel data from the Ethiopian manufacturing census to estimate the effects of demand-side and supply-side factors on industrywide aggregate productivity. The paper focuses on the effects of three factors: (1) local market size, (2) the value of transportation costs that firms incur in selling to customers outside their market, and (3) licensing fees needed to enter the market. Identification is based on a model of production under monopolistic competition, which enables interpreting the estimated coefficients of a reduced form, dynamic productivity equation. The paper analyzes 11 industries in Ethiopia over 2000 to 2010. Several interesting results emerge. In the most parsimonious specification, the estimated coefficients are consistent with all three predictions of the model—but only for one industry: cinder blocks. In this industry, the expansion of the local market boosts industrywide total factor revenue productivity, while increases in transport costs and licensing fees reduce it. The picture is somewhat mixed in the other 10 industries but broadly consistent with the predictions of the model.

This paper identifies and estimates the impact of firm entry and exit on plant-level productivity in Ethiopia as part of a selection mechanism that might be driving aggregate productivity growth in cities. Specifically, the paper investigates how firms’ entry and exit contribute to the pace of factor reallocation and total factor productivity growth within industries—and whether these processes occur in higher numbers and rates in larger cities. The analysis is carried out using establishment census data from Ethiopia that cover the period from year 2000 to 2010. Importantly, these data include information on plants’ physical outputs and their prices, which allows distinguishing between revenue-based measures of total factor productivity (TFPR) and those based on physical productivity (TFPQ). The analysis reveals that these two measures generate very different results under imperfect competition, suggesting that physical productivity measures (TFPQ) are better suited to examining firm dynamics when local producers have some degree of market power. In addition, the findings show that less productive (higher cost) firms are more likely to exit than their more productive (lower cost) rivals—but the analysis controls for producers’ transport costs. This is consistent with the probability of firm exit being higher when transport costs are lower.