Capabilities For Catching-up: Economic Development and Competitiveness in Uganda: Implications for Human Resource Development

The study summarizes desk research for a GTZ report on the human resource dimension of Uganda's economic development

The real challenge: confronting the neoliberal business culture in Uganda (and the structures that promote it)

[First paragraph] In the debate about improving the livelihoods of rural communities in Uganda, the technocratic, political and economic elites, both domestic and foreign, urge the ‘commercialisation of the peasants’. They say that people need to produce more, and of better quality, to be more entrepreneurial and that they need better access to markets. While markets loom large in the neoliberal dogma of those who do the urging, the market they are thinking of is an abstract ideal. Donors, NGOs and government officials rarely talk about the realities of the market arena in present-day Uganda. Our research into rural markets in eastern Uganda reveals that malpractice was often a significant element of these markets. Extensive interviews in Kampala and in the districts of Mbale, Bududa, Manafwa and Sironko suggest that face-to-face rural trade practices have been characterised by higher levels of malpractice and a change in their form since the onset of the largely externally imposed economic reforms (liberalisation, deregulation and privatisation) of the late 1980s and 1990s

Beyond harsh trade? The relevance of ‘soft’ competitiveness factors for Ugandan enterprises to endure in Global Value Chains

This article is based on an empirical study which examined the issues of organization and coordination of global production and trade for the case of trade between Uganda and Europe.Respective experiences of 34 exporters in Uganda and 19 importers in Europe were documented through in-depth interviews and consequently analyzed. The article discusses matters of cooperation between the exporters and importers and points to its significance for upgrading and enhancing competitiveness of the exporters studied. It further identifies firm level ‘soft competitiveness factors’ (SCFs) of Ugandan exporters and discusses their relevance for the firms’ performance in Global Value Chains. The findings reveal that deficiencies in SCFs can have damaging effects, and vice-versa. Possession of the SCFs can yield significant competitive advantage for exporters and help to strengthen the relationship with the importers. Findings of ill-treatment of exporters by their importers highlight a particular kind of challenge that is often overseen in the debate about exports of African firms: the challenge regarding business behaviours, practices, and ethics including the ability to engage in relations with foreign buyers and leverage resources, knowledge and generally cooperation from them, first, and the general issue of problematic business practices in the global economy, second. The article policy recommends Policy, practice and research should focus on economic, political, social, cultural and institutional factors that impact on local levels of SCFs; to improve and help exporting enterprises in Africa to survive and succeed in GVCs, within the context of the state of the moral economy in global capitalism

Case studies of lead firm governance systems in the context commercialization of smallholder agriculture in Uganda

[INTRODUCTION] The study is set in the context of: (a) overall weak farmer-buyer relations in most parts of Uganda’s agro-sector which affect the development prospects of small holder farmers (SHFs), and (b) a growing interest by the private and public sector, including the Government of Uganda (GOU) and development agencies in the contribution of value chain (VC) analysis and support interventions to economic development in the country. This study analyzes the governance of domestic value chains (DVCs) in the agricultural sector in Uganda. It focuses at exploring how agricultural produce buyers set up, coordinate and monitor - that is govern - the DVCs with their supplying farmers. Particularly how buyers govern the latter’s activities and performance and thus the division of labour in the DVC. Governance in this context constitutes for instance: (i) setting the requirements for farmers in terms of product quantity, quality and delivery, or production processes, (ii) monitoring compliance, and (iii) assisting farmers to meet the set requirements. This study focuses on such governance systems of various buyers which operate a DVC with SHFs. The buyers are called lead firms (LFs) of the DVC. The research was concerned with: the rationale and functioning of the business relation between the LF and SHFs, related benefits and costs as well as lessons-learnt, farmers’ upgrading as well as opportunities and challenges which will have to be addressed by the VC actors or call for assistance from for instance GOU and respective support institutions

Competing and Learning in Global Value Chains - Firms’ Experiences in the Case of Uganda. A study of five export sub-sectors with reference to trade between Uganda and Europe

Executive Summary and Chapter 5: Presentation and discussion of main finding

The age of fraud: the link between capitalism and profiteering by deception

Jorg Wiegratz argues that a de-Africanisation of the debate about fraud in the region is due and that the relationship between capitalism and fraud deserves far more analytical attention than it receives to date

Machine learning methods in finance: Recent applications and prospects

We study how researchers can apply machine learning (ML) methods in finance. We first establish that the two major categories of ML (supervised and unsupervised learning) address fundamentally different problems than traditional econometric approaches. Then, we review the current state of research on ML in finance and identify three archetypes of applications: (i) the construction of superior and novel measures, (ii) the reduction of prediction error, and (iii) the extension of the standard econometric toolset. With this taxonomy, we give an outlook on potential future directions for both researchers and practitioners. Our results suggest many benefits of ML methods compared to traditional approaches and indicate that ML holds great potential for future research in finance

Introduction: the moral matrix of capitalism in contemporary Central and Eastern Europe

This special section aims to shed light on moral milieus and agencies in contemporary capitalist Central and Eastern Europe. Drawing on case studies from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Russia, it offers insight into changing perceptions of a proper economy and proper practice amongst a broad range of actors - from landfill workers to business managers, to the super-rich. The contributors explore how actors at various scales morally construct, contest, and defend ideas of justice, (re-)distribution, and social worth, as well as socio-economic hierarchy, inequality, and harm. They analyze the capitalist moral transformation and order in the region, and examine the local appropriation of and buy-in to (as well as critique of) aspects of neoliberal moral orders - a topic side-lined in much of the existing moral economy scholarship. Exploring a broad range of moral-economic phenomena, they move beyond the conventional definition of morals as prosocial norms and action, approaching morals as a broader empirical phenomenon of economy and politics. They examine the actions, practices, and reasoning of different actors in relation to shifting notions of acceptable and unacceptable, just and unjust, and praiseworthy and blameworthy behavior. As such, this collection makes the case for widening the empirical object and analytical purchase of moral economy to include the study of not only moral critiques and resistance to capitalism, but also the (diverse) moral agencies, milieus and orders of capitalism, and the ways in which the advancement and embedding the capitalist moral order has shaped economic life in the region

Measurement of late-night salivary cortisol with an automated immunoassay system

Background: Measurement of late-night salivary cortisol concentrations is increasingly used as a screening test in suspected Cushing's syndrome. Cortisol concentrations are typically extremely low in late-night samples and discordant assay-specific reference ranges have been reported. Therefore, the aim of our study was to assess the analytical performance of the first automated cortisol immunoassay specified for salivary measurements and to establish late-night sampling reference-range data for this test. Methods: Salivary cortisol was measured using the Roche Cobas Cortisol assay (Roche Diagnostics). Five salivary pools in different concentration ranges were used to assess the inter-assay imprecision of this test in a two-centre evaluation protocol including two reagent lots. Linearity was tested by serial dilution. Salivary samples were obtained at 23:00 h from 100 apparently healthy volunteers using a commercially available salivary sampling device (Salivette, Sarstedt). A subset of 20 samples was used for method comparison with isotope dilution liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Results: Inter-assay coefficients of variation (n=20) between 11.6% and 40.4% were found for mean cortisol concentrations between 12.9 and 2.6 nmol/L, with an estimated functional sensitivity of approximately 5.0 nmol/L. The test also gave linear results in the lowest concentration range between 1.0 and 8.3 nmol/L. Mean late-night salivary cortisol of 5.0 nmol/L was found for healthy individuals; the absolute range was 1.4-16.7 nmol/L, and the 95th percentile was 8.9 nmol/L. Substantially lower concentrations were found with isotope dilution LC-MS/MS compared to immunoassay results (mean concentrations 1.8 and 4.4 nmol/L, respectively). Conclusions: The automated assay investigated was found to offer acceptable analytical performance in the very low concentration range required for late-night salivary cortisol, despite a very short turnaround time. Using this assay, late-night salivary cortisol concentrations below 8.9 nmol/L are typically found in healthy volunteers