We consider economic development of Sub-Saharan Africa from the perspective of slow convergence of productivity, both across sectors and across firms within sectors. Why have “productivity enclaves”, islands of high productivity in a sea of smaller low-productivity firms, not diffused more...

Africa's industrial progress has been disappointing. With the exception of South African auto components and garments, both of which have benefited from special incentives, Africa exports almost no manufactured goods that are not based on the processing of raw materials. Despite considerable...

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...

Our central question is whether African countries can break into global manufacturing in a substantial way. Using a newly-constructed panel of firm-level data from the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys, we look at labor costs in a range of low and middle income countries in Africa and elsewhere....

Can perceptions data help us understand investment climate constraints facing the private sector? Or do firms simply complain about everything? In this paper, the authors provide a picture of how firms' views on constraints differ across countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using the World Bank's...