Why Does Zimbabwe Export Manufactures and Uganda Not? Econometrics Meets History

Abstract

Uganda and Zimbabwe are predicted on the basis of their human and natural resources, to have similar shares of manufactures in their exports However, Uganda falls a long way short of the predicted share, while Zimbabwe greatly exceeds it. Uganda's manufactured export share is unusually small mainly because of high transport costs, due to its distance from the sea and inadequate infrastructure. Zimbabwe's manufactured export share is unusually big mainly because its comparative advantage in manufacturing was enhanced by the know-how brought in by European settlers and a long-term policy of promoting the sector.Human Resources, Natural Resources, Export Manufacturers, Uganda, Zimbabwe,

The ‘reversal of fortune’ thesis and the compression of history: Perspectives from African and comparative economic history

“…While African farming and small business was facilitated in the latter kind of colony, it was the handful of settler colonies, plus the Katanga province of the Belgian Congo (with its mining concessions), that saw most of the growth of manufacturing output before 1960. These economies had advantages in access to capital and skills and, in the case of South Africa (especially after its independence in 1910) and Southern Rhodesia (from the 1930s, with a relatively autonomous settler-dominated regime), had well-placed interest groups (with votes) who came to favour industrialisation (Austen, 1987: 181-187;Wood and Jordan, 2000).…”

Determinants of a firm's level of exports: Evidence from manufacturing firms in Uganda

“…We also included the education of the manager as a proxy for organizational resources. Managers with university degrees might be more likely to have contacts abroad, especially if they obtained their degrees outside their home countries, or might be willing to overcome bureaucratic barriers to exporting (see Wood and Jordan, 2000). We categorized the education levels of the manager into three; graduates, those with vocational training, and those who completed only secondary and lower levels of education.…”

Business Constraints and Growth Potential of Micro and Small Manufacturing Enterprises in Uganda

“…Several papers indicate additional constraining factors such as inadequate provision of public infrastructure and services that affect private investment , unfavorable taxation systems, and a heavy regulatory burden and administrative bureaucracy (Keefer 2000). Other authors mention limited access to differentiated markets, which might be related to a lack of forward linkages (Kappel, Lay, and Steiner 2004), the concentration of MSEs in low-quality production (Sengendo et al 2001), high transport and transaction costs (Rudaheranwa 2000(Rudaheranwa , 2006Wood and Jordan 2000), corruption (Svensson 2002), low trust and minimalist entrepreneurial strategies (Kappel 2004;Sørensen 2001), education and poor managerial and skills competence (Nalumansi et al 2002;Nel and Shapiro 2003), weak support institutions (Krasemann 1996;Kyomugisha 2001), a lack of sectoral competitiveness, and an overall neglect of MSEs in Uganda (Cotton et al 2003). 2 2 For development of African micro-and small enterprises see McCormick 1999, Kappel 2004; for medium and large manufacturing firms, Teal 2004a, Bigsten andSöderbom 2005;and in general, Liedholm and Mead 1999. The observations of most of the reviewed studies are based on descriptive results, which are unable to show how the stated business constraints affect the performance of MSEs while controlling for other factors (viz., owner-managers' attributes and firms' characteristics and resource endowment).…”