Small Enterprises Adjusting To Liberalization In Five African Countries

This study incorporates data from comparable surveys across five African countries - Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Senegal, and Tanzania - to analyze how small and micro enterprises have been positively and negatively affected by policy liberalization schemes. Som

This study investigates three issues concerning the role of indigenous entrepreneurs in the transition from a state-led development strategy to a more market-oriented approach with the private sector taking the lead: 1) the effects of liberalizing the policy regime on the conditions for micro and small-scale enterprises (MSEs); 2) the responsiveness of MSEs to changes in incentives and market conditions; and 3) the capacity of MSEs to mobilize savings, absorb employment, and contribute to growth. The study consolidates the results of surveys undertaken to assess the effects of structural adjustment programs (SAPs) on MSEs in five African countries. The positive effects of SAP reforms on the environment for MSEs included greater access to imported inputs, a shift in relative prices in favor of domestic inputs, and less restrictive regulation of private business. On the negative side, many MSEs faced increasingly intense competition from imports and from a growing supply of self-employed workers. Small-scale enterprises (SSEs) with 6 to 49 workers were generally better able to respond to changing conditions than microenterprises with 1 to 5 workers. They were more likely to change product lines, buy new equipment, and seek export markets. SSE owners were also more likely to have entered businees in response to a market opportunity, whereas microentrepreneurs were more likely to have been motivated by "push" factors such as family tradition and lack of other opportunities.

Reviews the World Bank's experience in industrial restructuring in 46 countries during the past 14 years. The study finds that for most completed public enterprise restructuring operations, sustainability of benefits was a large problem, mainly because of fragile sector reforms and inadequate governance and management. Those completed for the private sector experienced poor outcomes from inadequate attention to country economic conditions and policy distortions. To overcome such problems, the study recommends that future restructuring operations be designed and implemented to have an impact at the firm level.

All 15 new independent states established in the economic space of the former Soviet Union suffered big declines in output and trade after gaining independence. This study summarizes cross-country experience on the role of trade and payments policies in the linked contraction of output and trade by drawing on eight country case studies: Estonia, the Kyrgyz Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. The results of the case studies show that trade reform and reorientation of trade toward the rest of the world have done much to arrest the decline in output usually associated with the transformation from plan to market. Also available in English: Stock no. 13615 (ISBN 0-8213-3615-0).

IFC Discussion Paper No. 30. Draws on a case study of a cement plant in Estonia to compare the private costs of curbing pollution with the social benefits that may accrue to the population. The study concludes that the social benefits exceed private costs by a margin that sufficiently justifies the environmental investment.

Agricultural liberalization and the Uruguay round; The Uruguay round: an assessment of economywide and agricultural reforms; Trade in manufactures: the outcome of the Uruguay round and developing country interest; Liberalizing manufactures trade in changing world economy; The Uruguay round and market access: opportunities and challenges for developing countries; Assessing the Uruguay round.

World Bank Discussion Paper No. 341.In 1994, Mexico successfully completed a first phase of telecommunications reforms, which included the privatization of its state-owned telephone company. This report provides a concise overview of the second wave of reforms that began in 1995 and tracks related key events to May 1996. This second phase opened the markets to competition, ensuring a greater diversity and better quality of services.