Productivity premia and firm heterogeneity in Eastern Africa

Productivity development is a key issue for export-driven growth and development. We use East African Community (EAC) firm-level data. Instead of focusing on single EAC partners, using the World Bank Enterprise Surveys, investigate firm-level productivity difference for seven countries that are part of the COMESA-EAC-SADC tripartite free trade area (TFTA). Using export and ownership dimensions, we identify four types of firms: National Domestic, National Exporters, Foreign Domestic and Foreign Exporters. We find a clear export productivity premium for national manufacturing firms and service sectors, but not for foreign owned firms. We also find clear foreign-ownership productivity premium for both domestic and exporting firms in manufacturing sectors but less clear in services sectors. The gap between national export premium and foreign-ownership premium is stronger in manufacturing firms as opposed to service sectors. Moreover, we find clear and strong productivity premia in size, training programmes and level of development in the manufacturing firms. In the services sector, these premia are always smaller and only significant for medium-sized firms. There is no difference in experience premium between sectors in terms of both significance and magnitude of the estimated coefficients

The demand and supply of political campaign financing in Tanzania and Uganda during the 2010s

Campaign financing is defined as money and other resources used by parties and candidates during primary, parliamentary, or presidential elections to secure nomination and election to political office. In this paper, we develop a demandsupply framework for analysing and understanding such financing in newly democratising poor countries, exemplified by Tanzania and Uganda. Like other African countries, both countries operate a first-past-the-post electoral system, and both experienced a double transition towards political and economic liberalisation beginning in the 1980s. This has increased the cost to parties and candidates of being elected to public office. We make estimates of the orders of magnitude and sources of campaign financing in the two elections in both countries during the early and mid-2010s. Some 80+ members of parliament in each country were interviewed in 2017 to provide such information. For the two presidential elections during that period, we collected data through interviews with knowledgeable individuals and the use of secondary sources

Productivity premia and firm heterogeneity in Eastern Africa

Productivity development is a key issue for export-driven growth and development. We use East African Community (EAC) firm-level data. Instead of focusing on single EAC partners, using the World Bank Enterprise Surveys, investigate firm-level productivity difference for seven countries that are part of the COMESA-EAC-SADC tripartite free trade area (TFTA). Using export and ownership dimensions, we identify four types of firms: National Domestic, National Exporters, Foreign Domestic and Foreign Exporters. We find a clear export productivity premium for national manufacturing firms and service sectors, but not for foreign owned firms. We also find clear foreign-ownership productivity premium for both domestic and exporting firms in manufacturing sectors but less clear in services sectors. The gap between national export premium and foreign-ownership premium is stronger in manufacturing firms as opposed to service sectors. Moreover, we find clear and strong productivity premia in size, training programmes and level of development in the manufacturing firms. In the services sector, these premia are always smaller and only significant for medium-sized firms. There is no difference in experience premium between sectors in terms of both significance and magnitude of the estimated coefficients