Location Choice and Performance of Furniture Workshops in Arusha, Tanzania

Megumi Muto, Yessica, C.Y. Chung and Shinobu Shimikoshi

No 28, Working Papers from JICA Research Institute

Abstract: This study uses data collected in an emerging furniture cluster in the Tanzanian city of Arusha to investigate the determinants of location choice and location effect on the performance of micro and small furniture enterprises in Africa. Based on empirical analyses of a census of 234 workshops located in five sub-clusters, the results show that furniture producers tend to locate in sub-clusters where industrial peers from their own ethnic group have gathered. Meanwhile, the results, consistent with the literature on agglomeration economics, shows that entrepreneurs in Africa desire to locate in proximity to a large output market. However, performance analyses show that ethnic networks did not contribute to the performance of workshops as measured by DEA and product quality. In contrast, workshops located in sub-clusters with more machinery shops outperformed workshops located in sub-clusters with fewer machinery shops, implying that well-integrated upstream industries in the sub-cluster foster the development of the industry.

Keywords: Industrial Cluster; Location choice; Ethnicity; Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-03-03
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10685/188 (text/html)
https://jicari.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_u ... &file_id=9&file_no=1 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jic:wpaper:28

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from JICA Research Institute Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Japan International Cooperation Agency Library ().