Importing, Productivity and Absorptive Capacity in Sub-Saharan African Manufacturing and Services Firms

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• 作者：Neil Foster-McGregor ; Anders Isaksson ; Florian Kaulich
• 关键词：Importing ; Productivity ; Sub ; Saharan Africa ; Absorptive capacity ; Human capital ; D24 ; F10 ; M20 ; L10
• 刊名：Open Economies Review
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：February 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：27
• 期：1
• 页码：87-117
• 全文大小：504 KB
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• 作者单位：Neil Foster-McGregor (1)
  Anders Isaksson (2)
  Florian Kaulich (3)
  
  1. UNU-MERIT, Keizer Karelplein 19, 6211TC, Maastricht, The Netherlands
  2. United Nations Industrial Development Organization, Wagramer Straße 5, 1400, Wien, Austria
  3. Department of Economics, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Welthandelsplatz 1, 1020, Wien, Austria
  
• 刊物类别：Business and Economics
• 刊物主题：Economics
  International Economics
  Development Economics
  
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1573-708X

文摘

This paper examines the relationship between importing and firm-level productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using a recent firm-level survey for 19 Sub-Saharan African countries, the paper shows that there is a positive and significant relationship between importing and productivity for both manufacturing and services firms. Using a series of robustness tests, the paper finds that the importer-productivity relationship is robust in the case of manufacturing firms, but the results for services appear sensitive to the presence of extreme values. Finally, the paper shows that manufacturing firms with the highest levels of human capital show the strongest relationship between importing and productivity, a result consistent with a role for absorptive capacity in maximising the benefits of importing. Keywords Importing Productivity Sub-Saharan Africa Absorptive capacity Human capital