Journal of Economic Perspectives · 2022 · Margaret McMillan、Albert G. Zeufack
中文摘要
制造业对提高世界许多地区的生活水平做出了重要贡献。对过早去工业化的担忧使一些观察者对制造业在非洲发挥这一作用的潜力持怀疑态度。但过去20年间,非洲制造业的就业快速增长。这些就业增长伴随着:(i) 小型制造企业数量大幅增加;(ii) 大型企业就业增长有限;(iii) 非洲大型企业劳动生产率强劲增长。非洲大型制造企业就业增长有限,部分原因是非洲国家参与最多的制造业子行业——资源加工——资本密集度较高,部分原因是制造业资本密集度不断上升。制造业提高非洲生活水平的潜力,取决于大型企业通过后向和前向关联间接创造的就业,以及小型企业劳动生产率的提高。
Abstract
Manufacturing has made an important contribution to raising living standards in many parts of the world. Concerns about premature deindustrialization have made some observers skeptical about the potential for manufacturing to play this role in Africa. But employment in African manufacturing has grown rapidly over the past 20 years. These employment gains have been accompanied by: (i) large increases in the number of small manufacturing firms; (ii) limited employment gains in large firms; and (iii) robust labor productivity growth in Africa’s large firms. Limited employment growth in Africa’s large manufacturing firms is partly a result of the capital intensity of the manufacturing subsectors in which African countries are most engaged—the processing of resources—and partly a result of rising capital intensity in manufacturing. The potential for manufacturing to raise living standards in Africa depends on indirect job creation by large firms through backward and forward linkages and increasing labor productivity in small firms.