Employment impacts of technological innovations in sub-Saharan Africa: Firm-level evidence

Elvis Avenyo

No 332715, Conference papers from Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project

Abstract: Innovation has become a key interest in recent years in sub-Saharan Africa as it is evidenced to play eminent role in generating employment. There is however dearth of empirical evidence assessing the impact of innovations on firm–level employment growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Extending and applying a novel dose response model under different intensities of innovation, this paper presents new evidence on the impact of firm-level Technological Process and Product (TPP) innovations on employment growth using the World Bank’s Enterprise Survey (ES) merged with the newly available Innovation Follow-Up Surveys data covering the period 2010-2013 for 10 Sub- Saharan African countries. Our main findings are generally consistent with the stylized facts in the empirical literature with product and joint product and process (JPP) innovations having compensation impacts on employment growth while process innovations having displacement impacts. However, we found these conclusions to be invalid beyond sub-interval of firms’ intensity of innovation. In extensions to decent employment, we found product and JPP innovations to be creating indecent jobs. In terms of policy, the paper recommends extension of social security to all types of workers in line with national and regional innovation policies and the ILO-WHO Social Protection Floor Initiative.

Keywords: Labor and Human Capital; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:pugtwp:332715

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