Adjustment Costs, Irreversibility and Investment Patterns in African Manufacturing
July 1, 1999
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Summary
This paper examines dynamic patterns of investment in Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Zambia and Zimbabwe, assessing the consistency of those patterns with different adjustment cost structures. Using survey data on manufactured firms, we document the importance of zero investment episodes and lumpy investment. The proportion of firms experiencing large investment spikes is significant in explaining aggregate manufacturing investment. Taken together, evidence from descriptive statistics, average investment regressions modeling the response to capital imbalance, and transition data analysis indicate that irreversibility is an important factor considered by firms when making investment plans. The picture is not unanimous however, and some explanations for the mixed results are proposed.
Subject: Agroindustries, Econometric analysis, Economic sectors, Employment, Financial institutions, Labor, Logit models, Manufacturing, Stocks
Keywords: adjustment cost, adjustment costs, African manufacturing, Agroindustries, cost function, duration dependence, Employment, firm investment model, investment, investment behavior, investment rate, investment spike, Logit models, mandated investment, Manufacturing, nonparametric methods, Stocks, Sub-Saharan Africa, unobserved heterogeneity, WP
Pages:
53
Volume:
1999
DOI:
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Issue:
099
Series:
Working Paper No. 1999/099
Stock No:
WPIEA0991999
ISBN:
9781451852257
ISSN:
1018-5941
Notes
This paper was written by multiple authors (12).
