We investigate the effects of severe drought shocks in Tunisia’s agricultural sector during the period 2000-2019. Using labour force surveys aligned with granular weather data, we calculate Standardized Potential Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) to detect moderate-to-severe drought shocks occurred at the governorate level and frame the analysis in a staggered difference-in-differences setting with repeated negative events. We find that shocked areas experience a maximum of 7.4 to 10.6 percentage point drop in agricultural employment compared to the untreated or not-yet-treated governorates. We observe a contemporaneous opposite dynamic in the employment rate of low-skill and less climate-sensitive sectors, as well as a modest and transient increase in unemployment. The effects are largely heterogeneous across workers' groups, with women, young individuals and low-educated workers paying the highest toll. Urban non-agricultural workers are temporarily crowded out from the labour market due to the increase in the informal labour supply.
{"title":"When the Rain Stops Falling. Effects of Droughts on the Tunisian Labour Market","authors":"Federica Alfani, Giacomo Pallante, Alessandro Palma, Abdelkader Talhaoui","doi":"10.1093/jae/ejae010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jae/ejae010","url":null,"abstract":"We investigate the effects of severe drought shocks in Tunisia’s agricultural sector during the period 2000-2019. Using labour force surveys aligned with granular weather data, we calculate Standardized Potential Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) to detect moderate-to-severe drought shocks occurred at the governorate level and frame the analysis in a staggered difference-in-differences setting with repeated negative events. We find that shocked areas experience a maximum of 7.4 to 10.6 percentage point drop in agricultural employment compared to the untreated or not-yet-treated governorates. We observe a contemporaneous opposite dynamic in the employment rate of low-skill and less climate-sensitive sectors, as well as a modest and transient increase in unemployment. The effects are largely heterogeneous across workers' groups, with women, young individuals and low-educated workers paying the highest toll. Urban non-agricultural workers are temporarily crowded out from the labour market due to the increase in the informal labour supply.","PeriodicalId":51524,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Economies","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142218598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
There is evidence from some low-income countries that women's empowerment is associated with better child health and education outcomes, suggesting that mothers value these outcomes more than fathers do, on average. We hypothesise that this difference will be smaller in matrilineal societies, and using a Ghanaian household survey that includes data on children's education, we find evidence consistent with this distinction between matrilineal and patrilineal cultures. Women's empowerment is higher, on average, in matrilineal households, but this does not explain why their mean educational expenditure is higher, because empowerment in matrilineal households has no significant effect on expenditure. One possible explanation for these findings is cross-cultural heterogeneity in parental preferences: in the matrilineal society, women are more empowered, on average, and more money is spent on children's education, but the first difference is not the cause of the second.
{"title":"Ethnicity, Women's Empowerment and Decisions about Children's Education in Ghana","authors":"Ralitza Dimova, David Fielding","doi":"10.1093/jae/ejae009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jae/ejae009","url":null,"abstract":"There is evidence from some low-income countries that women's empowerment is associated with better child health and education outcomes, suggesting that mothers value these outcomes more than fathers do, on average. We hypothesise that this difference will be smaller in matrilineal societies, and using a Ghanaian household survey that includes data on children's education, we find evidence consistent with this distinction between matrilineal and patrilineal cultures. Women's empowerment is higher, on average, in matrilineal households, but this does not explain why their mean educational expenditure is higher, because empowerment in matrilineal households has no significant effect on expenditure. One possible explanation for these findings is cross-cultural heterogeneity in parental preferences: in the matrilineal society, women are more empowered, on average, and more money is spent on children's education, but the first difference is not the cause of the second.","PeriodicalId":51524,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Economies","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-08-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142218599","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Eva-Maria Egger, Michael Keller, Jorge Benjamim Mouco
This study assesses the impact of four coal mines in Mozambique on socio-economic outcomes of the local population. We combine four waves of household surveys with coal mine locations and employ a difference-in-differences model. The timing of the surveys allows us to control for pre-trends and differentiate between the effects during the investment and production periods. The mines led to a causal increase in consumption and a correlational decline in poverty. The mine introduced higher-paying jobs, often obtained by women, which shifted them from agriculture and unpaid work to the mining, service sectors and wage work. This shift impacted family labour dynamics, in particular young males and to a lesser extent young females worked less. The decrease in child labour reduced overall employment. Access to basic services, such as drinking water, electricity and health services, improved. Primary education completion rates increased, while children's schooling was unaffected. Negative consequences were found related to the incidence of sickness and a decline in market access.
{"title":"The Socio-Economic Impact of Coal Mining in Mozambique","authors":"Eva-Maria Egger, Michael Keller, Jorge Benjamim Mouco","doi":"10.1093/jae/ejae006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jae/ejae006","url":null,"abstract":"This study assesses the impact of four coal mines in Mozambique on socio-economic outcomes of the local population. We combine four waves of household surveys with coal mine locations and employ a difference-in-differences model. The timing of the surveys allows us to control for pre-trends and differentiate between the effects during the investment and production periods. The mines led to a causal increase in consumption and a correlational decline in poverty. The mine introduced higher-paying jobs, often obtained by women, which shifted them from agriculture and unpaid work to the mining, service sectors and wage work. This shift impacted family labour dynamics, in particular young males and to a lesser extent young females worked less. The decrease in child labour reduced overall employment. Access to basic services, such as drinking water, electricity and health services, improved. Primary education completion rates increased, while children's schooling was unaffected. Negative consequences were found related to the incidence of sickness and a decline in market access.","PeriodicalId":51524,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Economies","volume":"233 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141192600","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rural labour markets in Africa are frequently characterised by underemployment, with farmers unable to fully deploy throughout the year one of their most important assets—their labour. Using a nine-year panel data set on 1,407 working-age adults from rural Malawi, we document changes in rural underemployment over this period and how they are associated with urbanisation. Nearby urban growth is linked to increased hours worked in casual labour (ganyu) and in non-agricultural sectors, at the expense of work on the household farm. Improved urban access is also associated with a small increase in wage labour and, at the intensive margin, with hours supplied in household enterprises. We draw lessons from these results for policies, investments and interventions to leverage urban growth for rural development.
{"title":"Rural Underemployment and Urbanisation: Insights from a 9-year Panel from Malawi","authors":"Hanne Van Cappellen, Joachim De Weerdt","doi":"10.1093/jae/ejae004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jae/ejae004","url":null,"abstract":"Rural labour markets in Africa are frequently characterised by underemployment, with farmers unable to fully deploy throughout the year one of their most important assets—their labour. Using a nine-year panel data set on 1,407 working-age adults from rural Malawi, we document changes in rural underemployment over this period and how they are associated with urbanisation. Nearby urban growth is linked to increased hours worked in casual labour (ganyu) and in non-agricultural sectors, at the expense of work on the household farm. Improved urban access is also associated with a small increase in wage labour and, at the intensive margin, with hours supplied in household enterprises. We draw lessons from these results for policies, investments and interventions to leverage urban growth for rural development.","PeriodicalId":51524,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Economies","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140809956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In 2015, about 20.5 million babies were born with low birthweight (LBW), with the majority from low- and middle-income countries. The use of antenatal care (ANC) is a recommended health policy measure to reduce the risk of LBW. However, there is limited evidence for its effectiveness in reducing LBW in sub-Saharan Africa, although the region accounts for almost one-quarter of LBW babies, second only to Asia. Moreover, while the number of LBW in other regions is reducing, the number of LBW babies in sub-Saharan Africa is increasing. We therefore use data from Ghana (a sub-Saharan African country with a high incidence rate of LBW) to investigate the effect of using ANC on birthweight. The number of ANC visits and the month of ANC initiation were used as indicators for ANC utilisation. We applied an extended linear regression technique to deal with the potential sample selection bias and endogeneity associated with the use of ANC. The results from the study indicate that early ANC initiation and having more ANC visits are both associated with an increase in birthweight; however, the estimated effect of an early ANC visit is larger than having an additional visit. Therefore, we recommend that policies aimed at tackling the problem of LBW should mostly be geared towards promoting ANC utilisation, especially early ANC initiation. We also find that estimating the effect of ANC on birthweight without accounting for sample selection bias and endogeneity of ANC underestimates the effect of ANC on birthweight.
{"title":"The Effects of Antenatal Care Utilisation on Birthweight: Evidence from Ghana","authors":"Alex Bawuah, Simon Appleton, Yang Li, Lina Song","doi":"10.1093/jae/ejae003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jae/ejae003","url":null,"abstract":"In 2015, about 20.5 million babies were born with low birthweight (LBW), with the majority from low- and middle-income countries. The use of antenatal care (ANC) is a recommended health policy measure to reduce the risk of LBW. However, there is limited evidence for its effectiveness in reducing LBW in sub-Saharan Africa, although the region accounts for almost one-quarter of LBW babies, second only to Asia. Moreover, while the number of LBW in other regions is reducing, the number of LBW babies in sub-Saharan Africa is increasing. We therefore use data from Ghana (a sub-Saharan African country with a high incidence rate of LBW) to investigate the effect of using ANC on birthweight. The number of ANC visits and the month of ANC initiation were used as indicators for ANC utilisation. We applied an extended linear regression technique to deal with the potential sample selection bias and endogeneity associated with the use of ANC. The results from the study indicate that early ANC initiation and having more ANC visits are both associated with an increase in birthweight; however, the estimated effect of an early ANC visit is larger than having an additional visit. Therefore, we recommend that policies aimed at tackling the problem of LBW should mostly be geared towards promoting ANC utilisation, especially early ANC initiation. We also find that estimating the effect of ANC on birthweight without accounting for sample selection bias and endogeneity of ANC underestimates the effect of ANC on birthweight.","PeriodicalId":51524,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Economies","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140625714","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Digital labour platforms have grown five-fold over the past decade, enabling significant expansion of gig work worldwide. We interrogate the critique that these platforms tend to amplify aggregate shocks for registered workers. Based on the universe of records from a matching platform for manual freelancers in Mozambique, we analyse how task supply and demand altered with the onset of COVID-19. Treating the pandemic as a structural break, which extends to an event study analysis, we find it was associated with a net increase in tasks demanded per worker, but no clear change in supply growth (new registrations). While these general trends are evident across multiple market segments, there is also evidence of relatively higher demand for female as compared to male workers during the pandemic. This suggests digital labour markets can help some workers adjust to economic shocks in low-income contexts.
{"title":"Digital Labour Platforms as Shock Absorbers: Evidence from the COVID-19 Pandemic in Mozambique","authors":"Sam Jones, Ivan Manhique","doi":"10.1093/jae/ejae002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jae/ejae002","url":null,"abstract":"Digital labour platforms have grown five-fold over the past decade, enabling significant expansion of gig work worldwide. We interrogate the critique that these platforms tend to amplify aggregate shocks for registered workers. Based on the universe of records from a matching platform for manual freelancers in Mozambique, we analyse how task supply and demand altered with the onset of COVID-19. Treating the pandemic as a structural break, which extends to an event study analysis, we find it was associated with a net increase in tasks demanded per worker, but no clear change in supply growth (new registrations). While these general trends are evident across multiple market segments, there is also evidence of relatively higher demand for female as compared to male workers during the pandemic. This suggests digital labour markets can help some workers adjust to economic shocks in low-income contexts.","PeriodicalId":51524,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Economies","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140019499","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper explores moral hazard incentives associated with formal and informal insurance. We develop a theoretical model of risky effort that incorporates formal insurance and informal risk sharing, and test model predictions through a real-effort experiment with smallholder farmers in rural Uganda. Consistent with the theory, we find evidence of moral hazard under informal insurance. We, however, do not find evidence of moral hazard under formal insurance in our experiment. Experiencing a bad outcome, however, makes the risk in production more salient to farmers, and they increase their insurance coverage. These results suggest there may be some space for expanding indemnity-based insurance to smallholder farmers through awareness programmes.
{"title":"Moral Hazard Incentives under Formal Insurance and Informal Insurance: Evidence from a Framed Field Experiment","authors":"Aisha Nanyiti, Haki Pamuk","doi":"10.1093/jae/ejae001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jae/ejae001","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores moral hazard incentives associated with formal and informal insurance. We develop a theoretical model of risky effort that incorporates formal insurance and informal risk sharing, and test model predictions through a real-effort experiment with smallholder farmers in rural Uganda. Consistent with the theory, we find evidence of moral hazard under informal insurance. We, however, do not find evidence of moral hazard under formal insurance in our experiment. Experiencing a bad outcome, however, makes the risk in production more salient to farmers, and they increase their insurance coverage. These results suggest there may be some space for expanding indemnity-based insurance to smallholder farmers through awareness programmes.","PeriodicalId":51524,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Economies","volume":"164 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139910599","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Large-scale currency devaluations often result in rapid inflation, disproportionately affecting households with lower incomes, as they typically allocate a higher portion of their expenses to tradable goods. In this study, we examine cost-of-living changes of households across the income distribution in a relatively highly regulated, modest-inequality economy—Egypt—following the November 2016 devaluation of the Egyptian Pound when it depreciated by approximately 50%. We model the exchange rate pass through to domestic prices of various commodities, and the consumption responses by distinct economic groups, using true cost-of-living indices. We first quantify the exchange-rate pass-through to commodity prices, and then introduce a readily applicable methodology based on minimal data requirements to study the distributional implications for households’ cost of living and welfare, taking substitution effects and changes in preferences into consideration. Our findings reveal that over 30% of the rise in the cost of living of the average household was due to the devaluation, raising the amount of compensating variation necessary to keep households at their 2015 real welfare levels by 30% to 40% compared to the counterfactual scenario absent devaluation. These effects were more pronounced for some regions and among the poorest households. These disparities in welfare effects underscore the importance of designing and implementing targeted transfers to mitigate the negative impact of similar devaluations.
{"title":"The Inflationary Impact of a Large Devaluation across the Income Distribution: The Case of Egypt in 2016","authors":"Shireen Alazzawi, Vladimir Hlasny","doi":"10.1093/jae/ejad025","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jae/ejad025","url":null,"abstract":"Large-scale currency devaluations often result in rapid inflation, disproportionately affecting households with lower incomes, as they typically allocate a higher portion of their expenses to tradable goods. In this study, we examine cost-of-living changes of households across the income distribution in a relatively highly regulated, modest-inequality economy—Egypt—following the November 2016 devaluation of the Egyptian Pound when it depreciated by approximately 50%. We model the exchange rate pass through to domestic prices of various commodities, and the consumption responses by distinct economic groups, using true cost-of-living indices. We first quantify the exchange-rate pass-through to commodity prices, and then introduce a readily applicable methodology based on minimal data requirements to study the distributional implications for households’ cost of living and welfare, taking substitution effects and changes in preferences into consideration. Our findings reveal that over 30% of the rise in the cost of living of the average household was due to the devaluation, raising the amount of compensating variation necessary to keep households at their 2015 real welfare levels by 30% to 40% compared to the counterfactual scenario absent devaluation. These effects were more pronounced for some regions and among the poorest households. These disparities in welfare effects underscore the importance of designing and implementing targeted transfers to mitigate the negative impact of similar devaluations.","PeriodicalId":51524,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Economies","volume":"86 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139586125","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alexandra T Tapsoba, Jean-Louis Combes, Pascal Combes Motel
The year 2019 marked an unprecedented step in violence in Burkina Faso. Before 2018, attacks targeted central government officials and expatriates. In 2019, the victims of sexual assaults, attacks, abductions or forced disappearances and assassinations were mostly local civilians. The surge in these violent attacks against civilians generates population movements. As of 2023, internally displaced people represent about 10% of the total population in the country. Several observers point to the youth of the attackers. This study investigates the motives that could drive young people to resort to violence in the country. It aims to highlight youth resentment's effect on violence against civilians in the country as of 2019. It takes advantage of one of the latest nationwide United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)-sponsored surveys conducted in Burkina Faso before some parts of the country became inaccessible because of attacks. Among other information, this survey collected data on youth resentment towards the ability of their kinship to fulfil their needs in 2018, namely before the shift in violence against civilians. We merge this survey into an original dataset that gathers data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), mining data from the MINEX project and distance data computed using Burkina Faso's roads information. The results of an event count model show that youth resentment matters in understanding the occurrence of conflicts. Moreover, the presence of mining companies, the remoteness of infrastructures, ethnic diversity and polarisation also significantly affect violence against civilians.
{"title":"Does Youth Resentment Matter in Understanding the Surge of Extremist Violence in Burkina Faso?","authors":"Alexandra T Tapsoba, Jean-Louis Combes, Pascal Combes Motel","doi":"10.1093/jae/ejad023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jae/ejad023","url":null,"abstract":"The year 2019 marked an unprecedented step in violence in Burkina Faso. Before 2018, attacks targeted central government officials and expatriates. In 2019, the victims of sexual assaults, attacks, abductions or forced disappearances and assassinations were mostly local civilians. The surge in these violent attacks against civilians generates population movements. As of 2023, internally displaced people represent about 10% of the total population in the country. Several observers point to the youth of the attackers. This study investigates the motives that could drive young people to resort to violence in the country. It aims to highlight youth resentment's effect on violence against civilians in the country as of 2019. It takes advantage of one of the latest nationwide United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)-sponsored surveys conducted in Burkina Faso before some parts of the country became inaccessible because of attacks. Among other information, this survey collected data on youth resentment towards the ability of their kinship to fulfil their needs in 2018, namely before the shift in violence against civilians. We merge this survey into an original dataset that gathers data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), mining data from the MINEX project and distance data computed using Burkina Faso's roads information. The results of an event count model show that youth resentment matters in understanding the occurrence of conflicts. Moreover, the presence of mining companies, the remoteness of infrastructures, ethnic diversity and polarisation also significantly affect violence against civilians.","PeriodicalId":51524,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Economies","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2024-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139585823","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Linguère Mously Mbaye, Assi Okara, Massimiliano Tani
Abstract We investigate whether short-term mobility differentially affects innovation in product or process through the help of a theoretical model, and carry out an empirical analysis with a focus on African countries using firm-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey. We find that labour mobility positively affects innovation, especially for products and services, supporting its use as an effective mechanism to diffuse productive knowledge and foster innovation. We also find that short-term mobility benefits low-technology sectors the most, and that mobility from high-income countries may be an effective way of leveraging innovation in high-technology sectors in Africa. The results are robust to a variety of approaches controlling for endogeneity, and support the adoption of labour mobility nationally and across Africa to encourage labour mobility to promote domestic innovation and productivity.
{"title":"Labour Mobility and Innovation in Africa","authors":"Linguère Mously Mbaye, Assi Okara, Massimiliano Tani","doi":"10.1093/jae/ejad020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jae/ejad020","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract We investigate whether short-term mobility differentially affects innovation in product or process through the help of a theoretical model, and carry out an empirical analysis with a focus on African countries using firm-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey. We find that labour mobility positively affects innovation, especially for products and services, supporting its use as an effective mechanism to diffuse productive knowledge and foster innovation. We also find that short-term mobility benefits low-technology sectors the most, and that mobility from high-income countries may be an effective way of leveraging innovation in high-technology sectors in Africa. The results are robust to a variety of approaches controlling for endogeneity, and support the adoption of labour mobility nationally and across Africa to encourage labour mobility to promote domestic innovation and productivity.","PeriodicalId":51524,"journal":{"name":"Journal of African Economies","volume":" 429","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135186118","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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