IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/pugtwp/332715.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

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

Author

Listed:
  • Avenyo, Elvis

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Avenyo, Elvis, 2016. "Employment impacts of technological innovations in sub-Saharan Africa: Firm-level evidence," Conference papers 332715, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:pugtwp:332715
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/332715/files/7920.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Werner Smolny, 1998. "Innovations, Prices and Employment: A Theoretical Model and an Empirical Application for West German Manufacturing Firms," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(3), pages 359-381, September.
    2. Marco Vivarelli, 2014. "Innovation, Employment and Skills in Advanced and Developing Countries: A Survey of Economic Literature," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(1), pages 123-154.
    3. Mairesse, Jacques & Mohnen, Pierre, 2010. "Using Innovation Surveys for Econometric Analysis," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1129-1155, Elsevier.
    4. Dr Rizwanul Islam, 2013. "Integrating Productive Employment into the Post-2015 Development Agenda," Southern Voice Occasional Paper 3, Southern Voice.
    5. Jacques Mairesse, 2008. "Employment, innovation, and productivity: evidence from Italian microdata," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 17(4), pages 813-839, August.
    6. Amemiya, Takeshi, 1973. "Regression Analysis when the Dependent Variable is Truncated Normal," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(6), pages 997-1016, November.
    7. Konté, Almamy & Ndong, Mariama, 2012. "The informal ICT sector and innovation processes in Senegal," MERIT Working Papers 2012-009, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    8. Bogliacino, Francesco & Pianta, Mario, 2010. "Innovation and Employment: a Reinvestigation using Revised Pavitt classes," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 799-809, July.
    9. Faïz Gallouj & Faridah Djellal (ed.), 2010. "The Handbook of Innovation and Services," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12872.
    10. repec:bla:jindec:v:46:y:1998:i:3:p:359-81 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Tommaso Antonucci & Mario Pianta, 2002. "Employment Effects of Product and Process Innovation in Europe," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(3), pages 295-307.
    12. Pierre Mohnen & Bronwyn Hall, 2013. "Innovation and Productivity: An Update," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 3(1), pages 47-65, June.
    13. Verspagen, Bart, 1992. "Endogenous innovation in neoclassical growth models: A survey," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 631-662.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Avenyo, Elvis Korku & Konte, Maty & Mohnen, Pierre, 2019. "The employment impact of product innovations in sub-Saharan Africa: Firm-level evidence," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(9), pages 1-1.
    2. Heijs, Joost & Arenas Díaz, Guillermo & Vergara Reyes, Delia Margarita, 2019. "Impact of innovation on employment in quantitative terms: review of empirical literature based on microdata," MPRA Paper 95326, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Mariacristina Piva & Marco Vivarelli, 2017. "The employment impact of R&D expenditures and capital formation," DISCE - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Politica Economica ispe0078, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    4. Flavio Calvino & Maria Enrica Virgillito, 2018. "The Innovation†Employment Nexus: A Critical Survey Of Theory And Empirics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 83-117, February.
    5. Piva, Mariacristina & Vivarelli, Marco, 2017. "Technological Change and Employment: Were Ricardo and Marx Right?," IZA Discussion Papers 10471, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Laura Barbieri & Mariacristina Piva & Marco Vivarelli, 2019. "R&D, embodied technological change, and employment: evidence from Italian microdata," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 28(1), pages 203-218.
    7. Vivarelli, Marco, 2012. "Innovation, Employment and Skills in Advanced and Developing Countries: A Survey of the Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 6291, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Waheed, Abdul, 2012. "Employment effect of innovation: microdata evidence from Bangladesh and Pakistan," MERIT Working Papers 2012-024, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    9. Vincent Van Roy & Daniel Vertesy & Marco Vivarelli, 2015. "The Employment Impact of Innovation: Evidence from European Patenting Companies," DISCE - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Politica Economica ispe0075, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    10. Romano, Livio, 2019. "Explaining growth differences across firms: The interplay between innovation and management practices," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 130-145.
    11. Luigi Aldieri & Concetto Paolo Vinci, 2018. "Green Economy and Sustainable Development: The Economic Impact of Innovation on Employment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-11, October.
    12. Mariacristina Piva & Marco Vivarelli, 2018. "Is Innovation Destroying Jobs? Firm-Level Evidence from the EU," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-16, April.
    13. Martin Falk & Eva Hagsten, 2018. "Employment impacts of market novelty sales: evidence for nine European Countries," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 8(2), pages 119-137, June.
    14. Mariacristina Piva & Marco Vivarelli, 2018. "Technological change and employment: is Europe ready for the challenge?," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 8(1), pages 13-32, March.
    15. Francesco Bogliacino & Mariacristina Piva & Marco Vivarelli, 2014. "Technology and employment: the job creation effect of business R&D," Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Sociali, Vita e Pensiero, Pubblicazioni dell'Universita' Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, vol. 122(3), pages 239-264.
    16. Van Roy, Vincent & Vértesy, Dániel & Vivarelli, Marco, 2018. "Technology and employment: Mass unemployment or job creation? Empirical evidence from European patenting firms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(9), pages 1762-1776.
    17. Mariacristina Piva & Marco Vivarelli, 2018. "Innovation, jobs, skills and tasks: a multifaceted relationship," DISCE - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Politica Economica dipe0001, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    18. Sverre J. Herstad & Tore Sandven, 2020. "A closer look at the relationship between innovation and employment growth at the firm level," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 375-399, April.
    19. Kristina Matuzeviciute & Mindaugas Butkus & Akvile Karaliute, 2017. "Do Technological Innovations Affect Unemployment? Some Empirical Evidence from European Countries," Economies, MDPI, vol. 5(4), pages 1-19, December.
    20. Marco Vivarelli, 2013. "Technology, Employment and Skills: An Interpretative Framework," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 3(1), pages 66-89, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:pugtwp:332715. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/gtpurus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.