This paper assesses the role of knowledge economy (KE) in African business in 53 countries for the period 1996–2010. The four KE components of the World Bank are employed, notably: education, innovation, economic incentives and institutional regime, and information and communication technology. The business indicators are classified into starting, doing, and ending business. Principal component analysis and panel instrumental variable fixed effect approaches are employed as empirical strategies. The findings which are broadly consistent with intuition and the predictions of economic theory suggest that KE policies will substantially boost the starting and doing of business in Africa. This is relevant in fighting unemployment and improving African competitiveness in global value chains. Policy implications for the relevance of each specific KE dimension in African business are discussed with particular emphasis on the theoretical underpinnings of the study. The investigation is original in its contribution at the same time to the scarce literature on African KE and the growing challenges of improving the business climate of the continent by means of KE.

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The Role of Knowledge Economy in African Business

This paper provides a systematic review of challenges to doing business in Africa. It complements the extant literature by answering two critical questions: what are the linkages between the ease of doing business and economic development; and what are the challenges to doing business in Africa? In providing answers to these questions, the nexus between the ease of doing business and economic development is discussed in six main strands, namely: wealth creation and sharing; opportunities of employment; balanced regional and economic development; Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and GDP per capita; standards of living and exports. Moreover, challenges to doingbusiness are articulated along the following lines: (i) issues related to the cost of starting a business and doing business; (ii) shortage of energy and electricity; (iii) lack of access to finance; and (v) high taxes and low cross-border trade.

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Challenges of Doing Business in Africa: A Systematic Review

This survey essay reviews over 200 papers in arguing that in order to achieve sustainable and inclusive development, foreign aid should not orient developing countries towards industrialisation in the perspective of Kuznets but in the view of Piketty. Abandoning the former’s view that inequality will fall with progress in industrialisation and placing more emphasis on inequality in foreign aid policy will lead to more sustainable development outcomes. Inter alia: mitigate short-term poverty; address concerns of burgeoning population growth; train recipient governments on inclusive development; fight corruption and mismanagement and; avoid the shortfalls of celebrated Kuznets’ conjectures. We discuss how the essay addresses post-2015 development challenges and provide foreign aid policy instruments with which discussed objectives can be achieved. In summary, the essay provides useful policy measures to avoid past pitfalls. ‘Output may be growing, and yet the mass of the people may be becoming poorer’ (Lewis, 1955). ‘Lewis led all developing countries to water, proverbially speaking, some African countries have so far chosen not to drink’ (Amavilah, 2014). Piketty (2014) has led all developing countries to the stream again and a challenging policy syndrome of our time is how foreign aid can help them to drink.

Reinventing foreign aid for inclusive and sustainable development: Kuznets, Piketty and the great policy reversal

* Growth and Institutions in African Development 2. Determinants of Industrial Embeddedness: Evidence from Manufacturing Firms in an African Economy 3. Does Lack of Innovation and Absorptive Capacity Retard Economic Growth in Africa? 4. Exchange Rate Regimes and Trade: Is Africa Different? 5. Interrelationships among Health, Environmental Quality, and Economic Activity: What Consequences for Economic Convergence? 6. Emerging Evidence on the Relative Importance of Sectoral Sources of Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa 7. Tourism and Economic Growth: African Evidence from Panel Vector Autoregressive Framework 8. Hunting for Leopards: Long-Run Country Income Dynamics in Africa 9. Growth and Distributional Aspects of Poverty Reduction in South Africa 10. Outfits: Narrowly Tailored Laws that Harm Instead of Help. A Case Study of Liberia's Telecommunication Laws 11. Does Foreign Aid Support Democracy Development? Aid, Democracy, and Instability from Trade 12. Who's the Alien? Xenophobia in post-Apartheid South Africa 13. How Does Colonial Origin Matter for Economic Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa? 14. Institutional Reforms, Private Sector, and Economic Growth in Africa 15. Women's Labour Supply and Household Insurance in Africa

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Growth and Institutions in African Development

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Reinventing foreign aid for inclusive and sustainable development: kuznets, piketty and the great policy reversal

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine the major long‐term role that hands‐on entrepreneurship training could play in poverty alleviation and job creation in one of the poorest regions of South Africa – the Eastern Free State (EFS). This is done against a background of frequently occurring violent protests against the inadequacy of the government's hand‐out poverty alleviation strategy of social grants, free houses and free social services.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses desk research and quantitative analysis of survey data collected from the Phuthaditjhaba area of Qwaqwa in the EFS.Findings – The poverty indicators confirm the accepted view of the Free State as one of the poorest provinces in South Africa, which makes Qwaqwa, the poorest part of the Free State, a real human plight. While government hand‐out poverty alleviation measures, with their unintended consequences of violent protests and demonstrations, may only help some of the poor in the short term, training in entrep...

E. Benedict

Papers

Entrepreneurship training and poverty alleviation