IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/80112.html

Alleviating the Barriers to Domestic Investment in Addis Ababa: Underlying Causes and Proposed Solutions

Author

Listed:
  • Gebrehiwot, Berihu Assefa
  • Gebre-eyesus, Mulu
  • Bekele, Firew

Abstract

While Addis Ababa is rapidly urbanizing, productive job creation remains to be a key challenge. The root cause of this has been the lack of structural transformation towards industries with higher potential for growth and job creation. In response, the government of Ethiopia and the Addis Ababa city government in particular through their Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP2) target the industrial sector to enhance structural transformation and create more productive jobs in Ethiopia’s cities. Despite the priority and importance accorded to the industrial sector and efforts to improve the investment environment, quite a few domestic investors go beyond the licensing stage to start production. A recent World Bank report on the investment climate in Addis Ababa shows that only about 5% of domestic firms that receive investment licenses are able to convert from the pre-operational to the operational phase of investment to establish their businesses. This is also consistent with government reports. By any standard, this is one of the lowest investment conversion rates, and hence is quite concerning. So, the key question is: why 95% of investors were not able to move beyond the licensing stage to start operating? We tried to tackle this using qualitative/semi-structured firm level research among the firms who received an investment license but are stuck or discouraged.

Suggested Citation

  • Gebrehiwot, Berihu Assefa & Gebre-eyesus, Mulu & Bekele, Firew, 2014. "Alleviating the Barriers to Domestic Investment in Addis Ababa: Underlying Causes and Proposed Solutions," MPRA Paper 80112, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2014.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:80112
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/80112/2/MPRA_paper_80112.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Canice Prendergast, 2003. "The Limits of Bureaucratic Efficiency," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(5), pages 929-958, October.
    2. Ermias Engida & Eyasu Tsehaye & Seneshaw Tamru, 2011. "Does Electricity Supply Strategy Matter? Shortage and Investment:Reflections based on CGE Analysis," Working Papers 006, Policy Studies Institute.
    3. Nicholas Bloom & Aprajit Mahajan & David McKenzie & John Roberts, 2010. "Why Do Firms in Developing Countries Have Low Productivity?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 619-623, May.
    4. Olson, Philip D. & Bosserman, Debra A., 1984. "Attributes of the entrepreneurial type," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 53-56.
    5. Casey Ichniowski & Kathryn Shaw, 1995. "Old Dogs and New Tricks: Determinants of the Adoption of Productivity-Enhancing Work Practices," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(1995 Micr), pages 1-65.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Girum Abebe, 2012. "Ownership, Management Practices, Upgrading, and Productivity in the Metalworking sector: Evidence from Ethiopia," Working Papers 009, Policy Studies Institute.
    2. Qian, Nancy & Lagakos, David & Moll, Benjamin & Porzio, Tommaso, 2012. "Experience Matters: Human Capital and Development Accounting," CEPR Discussion Papers 9253, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Torsten Heinrich & Jangho Yang & Shuanping Dai, 2020. "Growth, development, and structural change at the firm-level: The example of the PR China," Papers 2012.14503, arXiv.org.
    4. Vittorio Bassi & Raffaela Muoio & Tommaso Porzio & Ritwika Sen & Esau Tugume, 2022. "Achieving Scale Collectively," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(6), pages 2937-2978, November.
    5. Bassi, Vittorio & Nyshadham, Anant & Tamayo, Jorge & Adhvaryu, Achyuta, 2020. "No Line Left Behind: Assortative Matching Inside the Firm," CEPR Discussion Papers 14554, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Florian Léon, 2022. "The elusive quest for high-growth firms in Africa: when other metrics of performance say nothing," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 225-246, January.
    7. Johannes Boehm & Swati Dhingra & John Morrow, 2022. "The Comparative Advantage of Firms," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(12), pages 3025-3100.
    8. repec:awi:wpaper:0421 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Axel Demenet, 2016. "Does Managerial Capital also Matter Among Micro and Small Firms in Developing Countries?," Working Papers DT/2016/12, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    10. Axel Demenet & Quynh Hoang, 2018. "How important are management practices for the productivity of small and medium enterprises?," WIDER Working Paper Series 69, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    11. Natalie Chun & Soohyung Lee, 2015. "Bonus compensation and productivity: evidence from Indian manufacturing plant-level data," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 47-58, February.
    12. Sheng, Xin & Guo, Songlin & Chang, Xiaochen, 2022. "Managerial myopia and firm productivity: Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    13. Dirk H M Akkermans, 2017. "Net profit flow per country from 1980 to 2009: The long-term effects of foreign direct investment," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(6), pages 1-28, June.
    14. Charles Angelucci & Antonio Russo, 2022. "Petty Corruption And Citizen Reports," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 63(2), pages 831-848, May.
    15. repec:zib:zbmbmj:v:1:y:2022:i:2:p:77-83 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Abhay Aneja & Nirupama Kulkarni & S. K. Ritadhi, 2021. "Consumption Tax Reform and the Real Economy: Evidence From India's Adoption of a Value‐Added Tax," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(3), pages 569-602, September.
    17. Kapri, Kul & Ghimire, Shankar, 2020. "Migration, remittance, and agricultural productivity: Evidence from the Nepal Living Standard Survey," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 19(C).
    18. Christopher Boudreaux & George Clarke & Anand Jha, 2022. "Social capital and small informal business productivity: the mediating roles of financing and customer relationships," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 59(3), pages 955-976, October.
    19. Coad, Alex & Segarra, Agustí & Teruel, Mercedes, 2016. "Innovation and firm growth: Does firm age play a role?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 387-400.
    20. Cecilia Garcia-Penalosa & Eve Caroli & Philippe Aghion, 1999. "Inequality and Economic Growth: The Perspective of the New Growth Theories," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1615-1660, December.
    21. Catia Batista & Sandra Sequeira & Pedro C. Vicente, 2022. "Closing the Gender Profit Gap?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(12), pages 8553-8567, December.
    22. Tetsushi Sonobe & Keijiro Otsuka, 2012. "The Role of Training in Fostering Cluster-Based Micro and Small Enterprises Development," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2012-099, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth
    • R51 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Finance in Urban and Rural Economies
    • R52 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Land Use and Other Regulations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:80112. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.