In the context of the Ghanaian government's objective of structural transformation with an emphasis on manufacturing, this paper provides a case study of economic transformation in Ghana, exploring patterns of growth, sector transformation, and agglomeration. We document and examine why, despite impressive growth and poverty reduction figures, Ghana's economy has exhibited less transformation than might be expected for a country that has recently achieved middle-income status. Ghana's reduced share of agriculture in the economy, unlike many successfully transformed countries in Asia and Latin America, has been filled by services, while manufacturing has stagnated and even declined. Likely causes include weak transformation of the agricultural sector and therefore little development of agro-processing, the emergence of “consumption cities” and consumption-driven growth, upward pressure on the exchange rate, weak production linkages, and a poor environment for private-sector-led manufacturing.
Itinerant traders provide an important route for West Africa's farmers' to get their perishable produce rapidly to the distant urban markets. But these farmers often accuse the traders of offering "unfairly" low prices while preventing direct access to these markets. Using Ghana's tomato sector as a case study, we provide the first detailed exploration of the interface between Ghana's farmers and traders, combining a theoretical model with novel empirical data on daily sales prices and tomato quality. We find that although the prices traders pay farmers are lower than prices in the urban markets, taking into account transport costs, these prices are higher than farmers receive from the local rural market. Our article suggests that policymakers would do better to focus on opening up access to the urban markets rather than on strengthening farmers' bargaining power with the traders, which restricts market volumes further and harms farmers unable to sell to traders.
The goal of this paper was to assess how the EU Generalised System of Preferences incentive scheme to combat drugs production and trafficking (GSP+) affected carnation imports in the United Kingdom (UK). Colombian carnations enter the EU duty-free under the GSP+ incentive scheme which is less secure than the trade agreement between the EU and Kenya. If the EU withdrew preferences from Colombia, would Kenyan flower exporters be better off in the UK carnation market? The results of study showed that Colombian exports benefited from tariff-free access to the UK where the benefit was due to both trade creation and trade diversion. Additionally, the competition between Colombian and Kenyan carnations was found to be insignificant and there was no evidence that GSP+ negatively affected Kenyan carnations. The results showed that competing exporters (Kenya, the Netherlands and Spain) could actually be better off when Colombian carnations are given duty-free to the EU.
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