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The World Bank Research Observer Advance Access originally published online on August 2, 2006
The World Bank Research Observer 2006 21(2):241-265; doi:10.1093/wbro/lkl003
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / THE WORLD BANK. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

What Have We Learned from a Decade of Manufacturing Enterprise Surveys in Africa?

Arne Bigsten and Måns Söderbom

Arne Bigsten is a professor of economics in the Department of Economics at Göteborg University; his e-mail address is arne.bigsten{at}economics.gu.se. Måns Söderbom is a research officer at the Centre for the Study of African Economies in the Department of Economics at the University of Oxford; his e-mail address is mans.soderbom{at}economics.ox.ac.uk.

In the early 1990s the World Bank launched the Regional Program on Enterprise Development (RPED) in several African countries, a key component of which was to collect data on manufacturing firms. The data sets built by these and subsequent enterprise surveys in Africa generated considerable research. This article surveys the research on the African business environment, focusing on risk, access to credit, labor, and infrastructure, and on how firms organize themselves and do business. It reviews the research on enterprise performance, including enterprise growth, investment, and exports. The article concludes with a discussion of policy lessons.


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