Shoes from Ethiopia

some time back, Kei Otsuka told me about research he was doing on the shoe industry in Ethiopia. Now the research is out. An Ethiopian student commented today that this is a case of successful industrial policy. I must read more than the abstract!

1000 or more factories are producing leather shoes in Addis Ababa. Most of them employ only 10 workers or fewer, but several factories have hundreds of workers.

In the early 2000s, China-made leather shoes flooded into the Ethiopian market plunging the local industry into a slump. Remarkably, however, the industry soon resumed vigorous growth, not only taking the market back but even finding its way into the international market.

While the majority of Ethiopian factories sell their product to domestic markets, some are exporting shoes in bulk to Italy and other developed countries as well as neighboring African countries.

More on Chris Blattmans blog