Premium
An Exploration into the Successful Development of the Leather‐Shoe Industry in Ethiopia
Author(s) -
Sonobe Tetsushi,
Akoten John E.,
Otsuka Keijiro
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
review of development economics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.531
H-Index - 50
eISSN - 1467-9361
pISSN - 1363-6669
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9361.2009.00526.x
Subject(s) - thriving , quality (philosophy) , product (mathematics) , business , marketing , new product development , industrial organization , economics , social science , philosophy , geometry , mathematics , epistemology , sociology
The leather‐shoe industry in Ethiopia is thriving, and in the early 2000s it managed to recover the domestic market which had once been swept by imported Chinese shoes. Using primary enterprise‐level data, this paper finds that the industry has been growing not only because of a number of new entrants but also because of the growth of enterprises that have been improving product quality and developing new marketing systems. Such multifaceted improvements have been introduced by highly educated entrepreneurs, who have successfully expanded the size of their enterprises. This development pattern is similar to that commonly found in East Asia.