Abebe et al. (2018) quantify foreign direct investment (FDI) spillovers by comparing changes in total factor productivity (TFP) among domestic plants in districts that attracted a large greenfield foreign plant and districts where greenfield FDI was licensed but not yet operational. Treated and untreated districts have similar trends in TFP prior to the opening of the large greenfield foreign plant. Over the four years starting with the year of the opening, TFP of domestic plants is 8% higher in treated districts. Using an alternative identification strategy that exploits the assignment of land for FDI by the Ethiopian Government, they obtain similar results. Foreign plants also attract new economic activity to treated districts. Exposure to foreign firms enhances domestic firms’: (i) production processes; (ii) managerial and organizational practices; (iii) logistics and; (iv) knowledge about exporting. Knowledge transfer is more likely among labor or vertically linked firms but also occurs outside these channels.
Research suggests that partisanship and social media usage correlate with belief in COVID-19 misinformation, and that misinformation shapes citizens’ willingness to get vaccinated.
In response to the Covid-19 crisis, 186 countries implemented direct cash transfers to households, and 181 introduced in-kind programs that lowered the cost of utilities such as electricity, water, transport, and mobile money.
This paper documents gender differences in informal labor market resilience using monthly panel data on the universe of garment-making firm owners in a Ghanaian district capital during the 2020 COVID-19 crisis.
Do customers discriminate between workers? This work returns to this long-standing question by asking what role customers play in gender-based discrimination in labour markets in low-income countries.
Manufacturing has made an important contribution to raising living standards in many parts of the world. Concerns about premature deindustrialization have made some observers skeptical about the potential for manufacturing to play this role in Africa.
Knowledge sharing between employees has long been viewed as a major driver of firm productivity growth, and the strength of productivity spill-overs within firms is a common measure of knowledge sharing.