The Determinants of Survival among African Manufacturing Firms

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4861176
AutoresMåns Söderbom (0000-0001-9310-093X, University of Oxford), Francis Teal (University of Oxford), Alan Harding (0000-0002-6681-5662)
Ano2006
Volume54
Fascículo3
Páginas533-555
Data de publicação2006-04-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoEconomic Development and Cultural Change (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0013-0079 • E-ISSN: 1539-2988
EditoraUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/500030
OpenAlexW2009720422
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas13
Referências citadas18

Recent reforms in many African economies of their trading and exchange rate regimes have eliminated much of the protection that previously limited competition. Despite these reforms, African manufacturing firms remain unsuccessful, particularly in international export markets. In this article we focus on the role of total factor productivity (TFP) in determining whether or not firms can survive in the subsequent period. We use a pooled panel data set of firms in Ghana, Kenya, and Tanzania that spans a period of 5 years. We find that productivity influences subsequent firm survival among large, but not small, firms. We investigate whether this result can be explained by differences in risk or the persistence of TFP. We find no evidence that this is the case. The result may be driven by covariance between the unobserved outside option and the value in remaining in existence that makes optimal exiting for small firms largely independent of productivity in the previous period

Business · Competition (biology) · Demographic economics · Econometrics · Economics · International trade · Macroeconomics · Monetary economics · Panel data · Productivity · Tanzania · Total factor productivity · Value (mathematics) · Economic Growth and Productivity · Firm Innovation and Growth · Global trade and economics