Africa > Uganda

You are looking at 1 - 6 of 6 items for :

  • Type: Journal Issue x
  • Industrial productivity x
  • Macroeconomics x
Clear All Modify Search
Cem Karayalcin
and
Mihaela Pintea
The process of economic development is characterized by substantial reallocations of resources across sectors. In this paper, we construct a multi-sector model in which there are barriers to the movement of labor from low-productivity traditional agriculture to modern sectors. With the barrier in place, we show that improvements in productivity in modern sectors (including agriculture) or reductions in transportation costs may lead to a rise in agricultural employment and through terms-oftrade effects may harm subsistence farmers if the traditional subsistence sector is larger than a critical level. This suggests that policy advice based on the earlier literature needs to be revised. Reducing barriers to mobility (through reductions in the cost of skill acquisition and institutional changes) and improving the productivity of subsistence farmers needs to precede policies designed to increase the productivity of modern sectors or decrease transportation costs.
Mr. Ales Bulir
,
Alma Romero-Barrutieta
, and
Jose Daniel Rodríguez-Delgado
The effects of debt relief on incentives to accumulate debt, consume, and invest are an important concern for donors and recipients. Using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of a small open economy with a minimum consumption requirement and an endogenous relief probability, we show that excessive debt accumulation is consistent with an anticipation of a future debt relief. Simulations of the calibrated model using 1982-2006 Ugandan data suggest that debt-relief episodes are likely to have only a temporary impact on the level of debt in low-income countries, while being associated with more consumption and less invesment. The long-run debt-to-GDP ratio is estimated to be about twice as high with debt relief than without it.
Mr. Kevin J Carey
,
Mr. Sanjeev Gupta
, and
Ms. Catherine A Pattillo

Abstract

Growth in sub-Saharan Africa has recently shown signs of improvement, but is still short of levels needed to attain the Millennium Development Goals. Economists have placed increasing emphasis on understanding the policies that promote sustained jumps in medium-term growth, and the paper applies this approach to African countries. The evidence presented finds an important growth-supporting role for particular kinds of institutions and policies, but also highlights aspects of growth that are still not well understood. The paper includes policy guidance for ensuring that the poor benefit from growth.

International Monetary Fund
This Selected Issues paper analyzes the underlying sources of growth in Uganda, suggesting that the contribution to growth from total factor productivity has been minor, while the high population growth poses a significant challenge to sustain a rapid improvement in living standards. The paper takes a closer look at the monetary transmission mechanisms in Uganda, aimed at assessing the appropriate choice of intermediate target and mix of liquidity sterilization instruments. It also focuses on the recent financial sector reforms undertaken by the government.
International Monetary Fund
This Selected Issues paper assesses the implications of a significant increase in the flow of external financing and grants on real GDP growth in Ethiopia. The paper presents an analysis of the sources of growth during 1991/92–2003/04, as well as an assessment of potential GDP growth. The paper also seeks to assess the historical relationship between foreign aid and the performance of the external sector in Ethiopia to establish whether foreign aid inflows have had an adverse effect on the tradable goods sector in the past.
Mr. Jean-Claude Berthélemy
and
Mr. Ludvig Söderling
This paper examines past African growth experience and attempts to simulate future ones. In addition to more commonly used determinants of total factor productivity, a measure of the effect of labor reallocation and an index of economic diversification are constructed and included as factors for long-term growth. A simple model is constructed for the purpose of simulating growth scenarios up to the year 2020 for Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Tanzania, and Uganda. Even if one makes relatively optimistic assumptions, Africa is not likely to reach "Asian tiger" levels of growth. The results also suggest that growth will depend, to a large extent, on educational investments and productivity gains in agriculture.