ABSTRACT
The fourteen chapters of the book – grouped into five parts – discuss the problems of the manufacturing firm: the competitiveness of the market structure facing the firm; the nature of the production function; the problems of the factors of production involved; the dynamics of firm behavior; and finally, the issues of the export market, in which the firms participate in varying degrees. Each chapter has concluded with a gist of the major conclusions. The purpose of this concluding chapter is not just to recount these main results of the analysis, but also to highlight how the results of each chapter are related to those of some of the others. It is hoped that an integrated picture of the characteristics and problems of the African manufacturing firm would thus begin to emerge. Although the main thrust of this book is on positive analysis, we also refer to policy options as they are suggested by the results of the analysis. Part II Size Structure of Manufacturing Firms Following the introductory chapter, Chapter 2 of Part II discusses the size
distribution of the firms. The RPED surveys specifically excluded the informal sector which consists of firms mainly operating with the help of household workers, with only moderate help from one or two hired employees. This does not mean that the surveys covered only the so-called registered sector, i.e., the firms which are in the books of the licensing authorities. Generally the “registered” sector has a lower cut-of point of about five employees, though the point varies from country to country. The RPED included a sample of micro and small firms which made use of some paid employees below this range. (The Appendix to Chapter 2 gives a more detailed account of how the sample was formed in one of the RPED countries, Zimbabwe.) However, the exclusion of the household enterprises, depending predominantly on family members’ work, meant that the “dualistic pattern” of employment in manufacturing with two strong modes at a small and a large size-group, is not so apparent in the RPED samples. Rather, the distribution for all countries are skewed to the large size group. However, the proportion of value added and employment contributed by very large firms are much higher in Zimbabwe, and the two Francophone countries, than in the other Anglophone ones.
