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Patterns of correlation in innovation and contractual practices among manufacturing firms in Ethiopia and Sudan are documented. Network data that indicate whether any two firms in the utilized sample do business with each other, buy inputs from a common supplier, or sell output to a common client are used for the analysis. Only limited support is found for the commonly held idea that firms that are more proximate in a network sense are more likely to adopt similar practices. Indeed, for certain practices, adoption decisions appear to be local strategic substitutes: if one firm in a given location uses a certain practice, nearby firms are less likely to do so. These results suggest that the diffusion of technology and new business practices may play a more limited role in spurring growth in Africa's manufacturing sector than is often assumed in the present policy discussion.

We use micro data on manufacturing employees in Kenya and Tanzania to estimate returns to education and investigate the shape of the earnings function in the period 1993-2001. In Kenya, there have been long-run falls in the returns to education while for Tanzania there is evidence of rising returns in the 1990s. The earnings functions are convex for both countries and this result is robust to endogeneity. Convexity may be part of the explanation as to how rapid expansion of education in Africa has generated so little growth if expansion has been concentrated at lower levels of education.

This paper investigates the education-earnings relationship in Pakistan, drawing on the Pakistan Integrated Household Surveys 1998-99 and 2001-02. The analysis has three main goals: to examine the labor market returns to education among waged, self-employed, and agricultural workers; to examine the labor market returns to the literacy and numeracy skills for these categories of workers; and to analyze the pattern of returns to education along the earning distribution. The shape of the shape of the education-earnings relationship is also investigated. The analysis is conducted separately by gender and age group and attempts to address the usual biases when estimating returns to education. Finally, the paper examines how key results have cahnged between the 1998-99 and 2001-02 surveys.

"Aid providers frequently link supporting small firms to job creation. Small firms create about half of new jobs in Africa, but they also have higher failure rates. Ignoring firm exit exaggerates net employment growth. Using panel data for Ethiopia, we find that small and large enterprises create similar numbers of net jobs. Moreover, wages in small firms are persistently lower. To create more 'good' jobs aid should target the constraints to the growth of firms of all sizes. Improving the 'investment climate' and new programmes to increase firms' capabilities--through for example management training--offer better prospects for employment creation."--Abstract.