With Gideon Ndubuisi and Solomon Owusu. Published on Development Front.
Africa’s structural transformation debate is often framed as a choice: deepen ties with the Global North or strengthen relationships with the Global South. That framing misses the more fundamental question — which trade relationships provide the technologies, machinery and intermediate inputs that African economies can effectively absorb, adapt and deploy?
Drawing on evidence from 52 African countries between 2000 and 2022, our article in The World Economy finds that the developmental impact of imported capital and intermediate inputs depends on where they come from, and how well they fit domestic production capabilities.