Capital adjustment patterns and uncertainty in African manufacturing
Abstract
Judging by the provisions of its investment code and the apparent stability of the macro-economy,Ethiopia seems to offer a favourable investment climate for the private sector. However,Ethiopian manufacturing has experienced a declining rate of investment since the mid 1990s.Like other Sub-Saharan African countries, more than half of manufacturing firms in Ethiopia have zero investment episodes;episodes that have become more persistent over time. This contrasts badly with high average profit rates in African manufacturingrelative to average profit rates in OECD countries. Rather than being smooth and continuous, firm level investment in Africa isless frequent and lumpy. While this pattern of capital adjustment is not unique to Africa, the discontinuity and lumpiness is starkerthan what is observed in developed countries. The evidence in this paper suggests that such discontinuity and the lacklustre investmentperformance have more to do with uncertainty and irreversibility. The paper shows that uncertainty, proxied by the volatility of profits,undermines mainly the likelihood rather than the rate of investment. However, the possibility to reverse investment decisions,captured by the scope of the second hand market for machinery, significantly increases the rate of investment.Download Info
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Paper provided by International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University (ISS), The Hague in its series ISS Working Papers - General Series with number 435.Length:
Date of creation: 01 Jan 2006
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Handle: RePEc:dgr:euriss:435
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Web page: http://www.iss.nl/
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Keywords: uncertainty; investment; irreversibility; African manufacturing;References
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Shiferaw, Admasu, 2009. "Survival of Private Sector Manufacturing Establishments in Africa: The Role of Productivity and Ownership," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 572-584, March.
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