Adjustment Costs, Irreversibility and Investment Patterns in African Manufacturing

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.
Publication date: July 1999
ISBN: 9781451852257
$15.00
Add to Cart by clicking price of the language and format you'd like to purchase
Available Languages and Formats
English
Prices in red indicate formats that are not yet available but are forthcoming.
Topics covered in this book

This title contains information about the following subjects. Click on a subject if you would like to see other titles with the same subjects.

African manufacturing , adjustment costs , duration dependence , nonparametric methods , unobserved heterogeneity , fixed costs , investment rate , probability , probabilities , survey

Summary