Market Access and Economic Development

Descripción del proyecto

Un análisis más profundo de las causas y consecuencias económicas del acceso a los mercados

Hasta la fecha, la mayoría de las investigaciones sobre las condiciones propicias para el progreso económico en países pobres (por ejemplo, el crecimiento del empleo) se han centrado en los factores que determinan la productividad del «lado de la oferta». Sin embargo, otro aspecto que hay que tener en cuenta es que el crecimiento de las empresas en estos países puede estar limitado por fuerzas externas a estas que, en último término, obstaculizan su acceso a los mercados. Algunos ejemplos de estas fuerzas externas son las infraestructuras deficientes y las barreras comerciales de los países. En el proyecto ACCESS, financiado por Consejo Europeo de Investigación, se analizará un conjunto más amplio de barreras económicas, políticas y sociales al acceso a los mercados, incluidas las restricciones jurídicas sobre la capacidad de las personas para poseer y operar empresas, y cómo afectan a las economías locales. Para ello, el equipo de ACCESS empleará datos microeconómicos de países en desarrollo como Colombia, Liberia, Filipinas y Uganda.

Objetivo

A huge challenge for research and policy efforts to accelerate economic development is that firms in poor countries grow surprisingly slowly, making job creation in the “Global South” difficult to achieve. We don’t know why: the existing literature has focused on internal (or “supply-side”) determinants of productivity that firms in poor countries are hypothesized to lack, but these appear to have modest explanatory power.

A notable alternative explanation is that many latently productive firms are constrained by forces external to the firm. Recent studies indeed establish that access to input and output markets appear to be important for growth. However, the existing evidence focuses on access constraints arising from poor infrastructure and countries’ trade barriers: firms’ and individuals’ de facto ability to acquire production inputs and sell output is likely influenced by a much broader set of economic, political, and social factors. Similarly, the consequences of market access may extend to “subsequent” economic development outcomes like job creation and changes in inequality.

ACCESS puts the causes and consequences of market access in poor countries at the center of inquiry for the first time. The research program is organized around the various stages of the production process: firms’ access to labor markets; firms’ access to suppliers and buyers in intermediate markets; and firms’ access to final product demand. In its last part, ACCESS returns to the origin of the production process to investigate how barriers to the most fundamental form of market access—individuals’ ability to own and operate firms—affects local economies.

Novel forms of detailed microeconomic data from a wide range of developing countries—especially Colombia, Liberia, the Philippines, and Uganda; new economic theory; and varied empirical methods are used to begin to uncover the many overlooked barriers to and consequences of market access.