Market institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa : theory and evidence

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Title:

Author:

Fafchamps, Marcel.

ISBN:

9780262062367

Personal Author:

Fafchamps, Marcel.

Publication Information:

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, 2004.

Physical Description:

p. cm.

Series:

Comparative institutional analysis

Series Title:

Comparative institutional analysis

Contents:

I. Issues and Data -- 1. Markets and Traders -- 2. Market Transactions as Contracts -- 3. The Data -- II. Contract Enforcement -- 4. Evidence from Case Studies in Ghana, Kenya, and Zimbabwe -- 5. Evidence from African Manufacturers -- 6. Evidence from Agricultural Traders -- 7. Inventories and Contractual Risk -- III. Trust and Relationships -- 8. The Formation of Trust -- 9. Trust and Business -- 10. Relationships and Agricultural Trade -- IV. Information Sharing -- 11. Markets and Information -- 12. Decentralized Reputational Penalties -- 13. Information Sharing and Socialization -- V. Networks and Markets -- 14. Market Formation -- 15. Business Networks in Africa -- 16. Returns to Network Capital in Agricultural Trade -- VI. Ethnicity and Discrimination -- 17. Discrimination and Networks -- 18. Supplier Credit and Ethnicity -- 19. Discrimination and Networks in African Manufacturing -- 20. Discrimination and Networks in Agricultural Trade.

21. Finance, Investment, and Networks -- VII. Conclusions and Policy Implications -- 22. What Have We Learned? -- 23. Policy Implications.

Subject Term:

Capitalism -- Africa, Sub-Saharan.

Free enterprise -- Africa, Sub-Saharan.

Geographic Term:

Africa, Sub-Saharan -- Economic policy.

Africa, Sub-Saharan -- Commerce.

Copies:

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Library	Material Type	Item Barcode	Shelf Number	Copy	Status
Searching... 1:IIEMSA	1:GEN-BOOK	33168015708056	330.967 F149M 2004	1	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

An analysis of recent data on the economic behavior of market institutions in sub-Saharan Africa, with implications for future research and current policy.

In Market Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa , Marcel Fafchamps synthesizes the results of recent surveys of indigenous market institutions in twelve countries, including Benin, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, and Zimbabwe, and presents findings about economics exchange in Africa that have implications both for future research and current policy. Employing empirical data as well as theoretical models that clarify the data, Fafchamps takes as his unifying principle the difficulties of contract enforcement. Arguing that in an unpredictable world contracts are not always likely to be respected, he shows that contract agreements in sub-Saharan Africa are affected by the absence of large hierarchies (both corporate and governmental) and as a result must depend to a greater degree than in more developed economies on social networks and personal trust. Fafchamps considers policy recommendations as they apply to countries in three different stages of development: countries with undeveloped market institutions, like Ghana; countries at an intermediate stage, like Kenya; and countries with developed market institutions, like Zimbabwe.

Market Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa caps ten years of personal research by the author. Fafchamps, in collaboration with such institutions as the Africa Division of the World Bank and the International Food Policy Research Institute, participated in the surveys of manufacturing firms and agricultural traders that provide the empirical basis for the book. The result is a work that makes a significant contribution to research on the continuing economic stagnation of many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and is also largely accessible to researchers in other fields and policy professionals.