Scoping of the Tunisian economy

Abstract

Typescript prepared by Liisa Roponen at UNU-WIDER. UNU-WIDER gratefully acknowledges the financial contributions to the research programme from the governments of Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.The World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER) was established by the United Nations University (UNU) as its first research and training centre and started work in Helsinki, Finland in 1985. The Institute undertakes applied research and policy analysis on structural changes affecting the developing and transitional economies, provides a forum for the advocacy of policies leading to robust, equitable and environmentally sustainable growth, and promotes capacity strengthening and training in the field of economic, and social policy-making. Work is carried out by staff researchers and visiting scholars in Helsinki and through networks of collaborating scholars and institutions around the world.

Agglomeration and firm performance in times of economic turmoil: Evidence from Tunisian firm‐level data

“…Between 1987 and 2011, the exports have increased by an average 6.6% a year at constant prices, while annual inflation fell from 8.1% to 1.9% over the same period 5 . The privatization program led to the full or partial privatization of nearly 160 state‐owned companies (Ayadi & Mattoussi, 2014).…”

“…Another contribution of this paper is that it uses detailed geo‐coded data on 1919 manufacturing firms in 24 administrative units (governorates), observed during a period of economic turmoil, whereas most studies focusing on Tunisian firms' performance were conducted during periods of economic prosperity (e.g., Amara & Ayadi, 2014; Amara & Thabet, 2019; Ayadi & Mattoussi, 2014; Thabet, 2015). Indeed, our study investigates the impact of agglomeration economies on firm performance during a recession period following the 2011 Tunisian revolution.…”

“…Except for Amara and Thabet (2019), previous works in Tunisia do not generally make a clear distinction between firm and region-specific effects. For example, Ayadi and Mattoussi (2014) focus on the aggregate relationship between regional heterogeneity (such as specialization, competition, and human capital) and productivity growth, ignoring firm characteristics. Their results may therefore suffer from omitted variable problems since firm heterogeneity is not considered.…”