Services Inputs and Firm Productivity in Sub-Suharan Africa: Evidence from Firm-Level Data

This paper investigates the relationship between the productivity of African manufacturing firms and their access to services inputs. We use data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey for over 1,000 firms in ten Sub-Saharan African countries to calculate the total factor productivity of firms. The E...

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Main Authors:	Arnold, Jens Matthias, Mattoo, Aaditya, Narciso, Gaia
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	EN
Published:	2012
Subjects:	Production Cost Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity Capacity D240 Welfare and Poverty: Government Programs Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs I380 Firm Performance: Size, Diversification, and Scope L250 Industry Studies: Manufacturing: General L600 Industrialization Manufacturing and Service Industries Choice of Technology O140 Economic Development: Human Resources Human Development Income Distribution Migration O150
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4701

id	okr-10986-4701
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-47012021-04-23T14:02:19Z Services Inputs and Firm Productivity in Sub-Suharan Africa: Evidence from Firm-Level Data Arnold, Jens Matthias Mattoo, Aaditya Narciso, Gaia Production Cost Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity Capacity D240 Welfare and Poverty: Government Programs Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs I380 Firm Performance: Size, Diversification, and Scope L250 Industry Studies: Manufacturing: General L600 Industrialization Manufacturing and Service Industries Choice of Technology O140 Economic Development: Human Resources Human Development Income Distribution Migration O150 This paper investigates the relationship between the productivity of African manufacturing firms and their access to services inputs. We use data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey for over 1,000 firms in ten Sub-Saharan African countries to calculate the total factor productivity of firms. The Enterprise Surveys also contain unique measures of firms' access to communications, electricity and financial services. The availability of these measures at the firm level, both as subjective and objective indicators, allows us to exploit the variation in services performance at the sub-national regional level. Furthermore, by using the regional variation in services performance, we are also able to address concerns about the possible endogeneity of the services variables. Our 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. 2012-03-30T07:29:18Z 2012-03-30T07:29:18Z 2008 Journal Article Journal of African Economies 09638024 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4701 EN http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Journal Article
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	EN
topic	Production Cost Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity Capacity D240 Welfare and Poverty: Government Programs Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs I380 Firm Performance: Size, Diversification, and Scope L250 Industry Studies: Manufacturing: General L600 Industrialization Manufacturing and Service Industries Choice of Technology O140 Economic Development: Human Resources Human Development Income Distribution Migration O150
spellingShingle	Production Cost Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity Capacity D240 Welfare and Poverty: Government Programs Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs I380 Firm Performance: Size, Diversification, and Scope L250 Industry Studies: Manufacturing: General L600 Industrialization Manufacturing and Service Industries Choice of Technology O140 Economic Development: Human Resources Human Development Income Distribution Migration O150 Arnold, Jens Matthias Mattoo, Aaditya Narciso, Gaia Services Inputs and Firm Productivity in Sub-Suharan Africa: Evidence from Firm-Level Data
relation	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo
description	This paper investigates the relationship between the productivity of African manufacturing firms and their access to services inputs. We use data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey for over 1,000 firms in ten Sub-Saharan African countries to calculate the total factor productivity of firms. The Enterprise Surveys also contain unique measures of firms' access to communications, electricity and financial services. The availability of these measures at the firm level, both as subjective and objective indicators, allows us to exploit the variation in services performance at the sub-national regional level. Furthermore, by using the regional variation in services performance, we are also able to address concerns about the possible endogeneity of the services variables. Our 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.
format	Journal Article
author	Arnold, Jens Matthias Mattoo, Aaditya Narciso, Gaia
author_facet	Arnold, Jens Matthias Mattoo, Aaditya Narciso, Gaia
author_sort	Arnold, Jens Matthias
title	Services Inputs and Firm Productivity in Sub-Suharan Africa: Evidence from Firm-Level Data
title_short	Services Inputs and Firm Productivity in Sub-Suharan Africa: Evidence from Firm-Level Data
title_full	Services Inputs and Firm Productivity in Sub-Suharan Africa: Evidence from Firm-Level Data
title_fullStr	Services Inputs and Firm Productivity in Sub-Suharan Africa: Evidence from Firm-Level Data
title_full_unstemmed	Services Inputs and Firm Productivity in Sub-Suharan Africa: Evidence from Firm-Level Data
title_sort	services inputs and firm productivity in sub-suharan africa: evidence from firm-level data
publishDate	2012
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4701
_version_	1764392445939810304

Services Inputs and Firm Productivity in Sub-Suharan Africa: Evidence from Firm-Level Data

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