Albert Zeufack

World Bank · Global Practice for Macroeconomics and Fiscal Management

A computable general equilibrium model is used to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on sub-Saharan Africa relying on three scenarios: (i) a rapid and effective policy response in sub-Saharan Africa means that new COVID-19 cases disappear by early July 2020; (ii) a slow and ineffective policy response prolongs the pandemic through 2021;(i...

In most of developing countries, natural resource revenues constitute an important source of �fiscal revenues and foreign reserves. These revenues provide an opportunity to accelerate economic development in capital-scarce economies that face �financial and �fiscal constraints. However, managing revenue windfalls from non-renewable resources poses...

In April 2010, Malaysia embarked on a new economic model (NEM) to transform the economy towards High-Income status by 2020. Knowledge and innovation are the bedrock of this development strategy. Indeed, moving to High-Income status would require economic growth in Malaysia to be sustained by higher productivity growth, which in turn relies heavily...

This paper explores the stabilisation properties of fiscal policy in Malaysia using a model incorporating nonlinearities into the dynamic relationship between fiscal policy and real economic activity over the growthcycle. The paper also investigates how output multipliers for government purchases may alter for different components of government spe...

Oil has been a curse for Cameroon, one of the potentially richest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. While the discovery of oil in 1977 and initial prudent management accentuated hopes, Cameroon has become an example of growth collapse. GDP contracted by 5% on average per year, a combined 27% over the 8-year period, dropping per capita income in 1993...

We compare samples of textiles and garments producers across groups of countries to find that, in general, productivity is far lower in Sub-Saharan Africa than it is in India. Indian manufacturers in turn are significantly less productive than their counterparts in Morocco, while producers in some SSA countries do match or exceed the Indian standar...

This paper tests two alternative models of selection into export: lower costs and better market familiarity. Both are potentially subject to learning-by-doing, but differ in the type of experience required. Learning to produce at lower cost -- what we call productivity learning -- depends on general experience, while learning to design products tha...

In a large cross-country sample of manufacturing establishments drawn from 188 cities, average exports per establishment are smaller for African firms than for businesses in other regions. The authors show that this is mainly because, on average, African firms face more adverse economic geography and operate in poorer institutional settings. Once t...

In a large cross-country sample of manufacturing establishments drawn from 188 cities, average exports per establishments are smaller for African firms than for businesses in other regions. Based on the estimation of firm level exporting equations, we show that this is mainly because, on average, African firms face more adverse economic geography a...

In a large crosscountry sample of manufacturing establishments drawn from 188 cities, average exports per establishments are smaller for African firms than for businesses in other regions. Based on the estimation of firm level exporting equations, we show that this is mainly because, on average, African firms face more adverse economic geography an...

This paper tests two alternative models of learning to export: productivity learning, whereby firms learn to reduce production costs, and market learning, whereby firms learn to design products that appeal to foreign consumers. Using panel and cross-section data on Moroccan manufacturers, we uncover evidence of market learning but little evidence o...

We use firm-level panel data for the manufacturing sector in four African countries to investigate whether exporting impacts on efficiency, and whether efficient firms self-select into the export market. Based on simultaneous estimation of a production function and an export regression, our preferred results indicate significant efficiency gains fr...

Empirical work in labour economics has focused on rent sharing as an explanation for the observed correlation in cross-sections between wages and profitability. The alternative explanation of risk sharing between workers and employers has not been tested. Using a unique panel data set for four African countries we find strong evidence of risk shari...

We investigate the question of whether firms in Africa's manufacturing sector are credit constrained. The fact that few firms obtain credit is not sufficient to prove constraints, since certain firms may not have a demand for credit while others may be refused credit as part of profit maximising behaviour by banks. To investigate this question, we...

Empirical work in labor economics has focused on rent sharing as an explanation for the observed correlation between wages and profitability. The alternative explanation of risk sharing between workers and employers has not been tested. Using a unique panel data set for four African countries, we find strong evidence of risk sharing. Workers in eff...

This paper tests two alternative models of learning to export: productivity learning, whereby firms learn to reduce production costs, and market learning, whereby firms learn to design products that appeal to foreign consumers. Using panel and cross-section data on Moroccan manufacturers, we uncover evidence of market learning but little evidence o...

Asia's share of manufacturing export to gross domestic product in the 1990s was more than five times that of Sub-Saharan Africa. While explanations abound in the literature as to why Africa has failed, recent empirical work suggests that the reason for Africa's dismal export performance lies in a low skill-to-land ratio, which causes its comparativ...

How important is geography relative to, say, trade policy or institutional or physical infrastructure, in determining the growth potential of manufactured exports in Sub-Saharan Africa? In this paper we seek to answer this question by analyzing the export performance of more than 1400 manufacturers of textile and garments from six countries in the...

ABSTRACT: In this paper, we use firm-level panel data for the manufacturing sector in four African countries to estimate the effect of exporting on efficiency. Measures of firm-level efficiency using stochastic production frontier models are constructed for the period 1992 to 1995. We find that there are large efficiency gains from exporting both i...

Abstract: We investigate the question whether firms in the manufacturing sector in Africa are credit constrained. The fact that few firms obtain credit is not sufficient to prove constraints, since certain firms may not have a demand for credit while others may be refused credit as part of profit maximising behaviour by banks. To investigate this q...

Firm level data for the manufacturing sector in Africa, presented in this paper, shows very low levels of investment. The importance of profit effects on investment is investigated using a flexible accelerator, a specification based on the Euler equation and a simple generalisation of these specificiations. There are controls for firm fixed effects...

Macro policy has changed the real exchange rates for African countries dramatically in the 1990s. In this paper the possible impact of macroeconomic policy on firms in the manufacturing sector is considered based on a panel survey of such firms in Cameroon. Kenya, Ghana and Zimbabwe. The data show that most large African manufacturing firms do expo...

This article examines the contractual practices of African manufacturing firms using survey data collected in Burundi, Cameroon, Cote d'lvoire, Kenya, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Descriptive statistics and econometric results are presented. They show that contractual flexibility is pervasive and that relational contracting is the norm between manufacture...

In this paper two sets of issues are addressed using panel data from the manufacturing sector of five African countries. First, how high are the returns to human relative to physical capital. Second, what is the relative importance of technology and endowments of human and physical capital in determining differences in earnings and productivity acr...

This paper examines the contractual practices of African manufacturing firms using survey data collected in Burundi, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Descriptive statistics and econometric results are presented. They show that contractual flexibility is pervasive and that relational contracting is the norm between manufactu...

Firm level data for the manufacturing sector in Africa, presented in this paper, shows very low levels of investment. The importance of profit effects on investment is investigated using a flexible accelerator, a specification based on the Euler equation and a simple generalisation of these specificia-tions. There are controls for firm fixed effect...

Fiscal incentives are usually introduced in the investment function through the user cost of capital (UCC). This approach suggests that these measures and the other UCC's components act on investment through the same channels. However, in African countries and especially in CFA countries, the irrelevance of interest rates as major investment decisi...

Cet article analyse le comportement d'investissement des entreprises manufacturières ivoiriennes face à un environnement particulièrement instable durant la décennie 1980. L'estimation économétrique d'un modèle de demande incertaine sur données d'un panel d'entreprises privées, sur la période 1983-1991, met en exergue une différence de réaction à l...

Cet article étudie le comportement d'investissement des entreprises manufacturières camerounaises pendant la période d'ajustement. Il met en exergue le rôle des facteurs institutionnels tels que l'incertitude de l'environnement et teste l'hypothèse formulée par la théorie des droits de propriété selon laquelle le comportement des firmes serait diff...

According to the standard model of human capital with perfect labor markets, firms have no incentive to providing "general training" to their employees, as workers capture all the benefits of this investment which is not "specific" to the firm. Recently, employer-provided training has been subject to a renewed interest, under the light of non-compe...

This paper analyzes six waves of the Thai Socio Economic Survey (SES) spanning from 1986 to 1996 to provide estimates of the scope, and trend of sectoral contribution to overall income inequality in Thailand. The paper first discusses the rationale for choosing a pertinent measure of income inequality, and the role of interaction terms in the decom...

In 1960 real per capita GDP was about the same in Kenya as in Thailand. By 1997, real per capita income had reached $5,000 (PPP) in Thailand, more than five times Kenya's level. Differences in macroeconomic policies can explain some of the difference in growth performance, but nowhere near all of it. This paper uses newly available firm-level data...