ABSTRACT
African industrial firms are constrained by many factors on the demand and the supply sides. Existing studies of industrial development in Sub-Saharan Africa fall into two categories. The first is a growing body of largely descriptive literature by economic historians, and analytical case studies based on data from surveys of industry by international organizations and government agencies. The second comprises econometric studies using firm-level data. The transition that matters most for African industrialization is the one from small-scale agro-processing to formal and modern manufacturing. The commonly cited agents of economic transformation are a developmental regime, a nucleus of an entrepreneurial business class, and a large enough initial investible surplus. According to the most recent reviews of African industrial development, African manufacturing industry continues to lose ground to better-prepared Asian economies in the export markets as well as in the home market itself for labor-intensive manufactures.
