Person:
Fox, Louise

Office of the Chief Economist, Africa Region Department, World Bank

Fields of Specialization

Labor Economics (employment, measurement, policies); Economic Development (formal and informal sectors, institutions, planning and policy, data collection systems); Household Behavior and Family Economics, Welfare and Poverty; Sub-Saharan Africa

Departments

Office of the Chief Economist, Africa Region Department, World Bank

Last updated January 31, 2023

Biography

Louise Fox is Lead Economist in the Africa Region, Her most recent research has been on the household enterprise sector in Sub-Saharan Africa – why these enterprises matter for jobs, growth, and poverty reduction. For the past ten years she has analyzed labor markets, employment and poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa, and is coauthor of the regional report on youth employment. Prior to her current position, Dr. Fox spent more than 10 years working on issues of labor market adjustment, poverty and social protection in transition economies, including: China and Mongolia, the Baltic States, Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and the Former Soviet Union. Before that she researched poverty, inequality and macroeconomic adjustment in Latin America. She has also published in the areas of employment creation, effectiveness of poverty reduction policies, pension reform, reform of child welfare systems, social protection, public expenditures in the social sectors and poverty reduction, female headed households and child welfare, stabilization policies and poverty reduction, the social costs of adjustment.

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Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 15

Are Skills Rewarded in Sub-Saharan Africa? Determinants of Wages and Productivity in the Manufacturing Sector

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-08) Fox, Louise ; Oviedo, Ana Maria

Using recent matched employer-employee data from the manufacturing sector in 20 Sub-Saharan African countries, the authors analyze how the supply of skills and legal origin of the country affect the wage setting process. The wage analysis yields three main findings. First, increasing returns to education, especially for older workers, suggest that the expansion of education in Africa has reduced returns to education for entrants in the labor market. Second, age effects matter not just for returns to education, but also for the wage setting process more generally. In particular, in civil-law countries, returns to seniority are rewarded only after a certain age. Third, workers exercise some power in the wage setting process but their influence varies by linguistic group. In common-law countries, union presence benefits all workers equally, not just members, whereas in civil-law countries, only older members enjoy higher wages. The authors also contrast wage premia with relative marginal productivities for different age, occupation, and education categories. The findings show that in general, older, highly educated, and highly ranked workers receive wage premia that do not reflect a higher relative marginal productivity.
Institutions and Labor Market Outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-09) Fox, Louise ; Oviedo, Ana Maria

The authors use firm-level survey data from the manufacturing sector in 20 Sub-Saharan African countries to explore the links between labor market regulations and net job creation. A first look at firm characteristics, perceptions, and the dynamics of employment at the firm level suggests that labor regulations are not the main "binding constraint" on job creation. Other issues seem more important at this level of development. The analysis estimates the determinants of net job creation incorporating the legal origin of the country as a proxy for regulation. The findings show that, after controlling for other firm-level characteristics, legal origin is uncorrelated with net job creation in the short run.
Different Dreams, Same Bed : Collecting, Using, and Interpreting Employment Statistics in Sub-Saharan Africa--The Case of Uganda

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-05) Fox, Louise ; Pimhidzai, Obert

Employment and earnings statistics are the key link between the size and structure of economic growth and the welfare of households, which is the ultimate goal of development policy, so it is important to monitor employment outcomes consistently. A cursory review of employment data for low-income Sub-Saharan African countries shows both large gaps and improbable variation within countries over time and among countries, suggesting that low quality data are routinely reported by national statistics offices. Unfortunately, policies are formed and projects developed and implemented on the basis of these statistics. Therefore, errors of measurement could be having profound implications on the strategic priorities and policies of a country. This paper explains the improbable results observed by using data from Uganda, where the labor module contains variation both within and across surveys, to show the sensitivity of employment outcomes to survey methodology. It finds that estimates of employment outcomes are unreliable if the questionnaire did not use screening questions, as labor force participation will be underestimated. Likewise, surveys that use a seven-day recall period underestimate or potentially misrepresent employment outcomes, owing to seasonality and multiple jobs. Common multivariate analysis applied on household survey data will be affected, as the errors in measurement in the dependent and independent variables will be correlated. Corrections to reduce measurement bias in existing data are tested with the survey data; none are found to be completely satisfactory. The paper concludes that there is a knowledge gap about employment outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa that will continue unless collection techniques improve.
Household Enterprises in Mozambique : Key to Poverty Reduction but Not on the Development Agenda?

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-08) Fox, Louise ; Sohnesen, Thomas Pave

Household enterprises -- usually one-person-operated tiny informal enterprises -- are a rapidly growing source of employment in Sub-Saharan Africa, especially in lower-income countries. Household enterprises tend to operate with limited interest or support from governments. This is the case in Mozambique, where neither the poverty reduction strategy nor small and medium enterprise development policies include household enterprises. Using multiple household surveys, including a recent panel data set, this paper identifies the characteristics of the sector and its development during the period in which Mozambique experienced rapid economic growth. The analysis finds that household enterprises in Mozambique are associated with higher household consumption, lower rural poverty, as well as upward mobility, particularly for rural and poorly educated households. But if the Mozambican government wants to tap this potential, it will need a different strategy than one designed to support small and medium enterprises, because creation and survival in this sector seems to depend on a set of factors related to the human capital in the household and development in the location, not the soft business environment constraints, such as licensing and permitting and corruption, which are cited by larger business.
Gender Dimensions of Pension Reform in the Former Soviet Union

(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2001-02) Castel, Paulette ; Fox, Louise

The authors analyze the gender implications of pension reform in Kazakhstan, the Kygyz Republic, Latvia, and Moldova. The new systems deliberately penalize early retirement and reward longer careers, so that with no change in behavior or policy, women's pensions will be lower than men's on average. Still, the implicit financial returns for women remain higher on average than returns for men, because of women's longer life expectancy and because of redistributory minimum pensions. Overall, however, the net change in wealth resulting from the reforms will be larger on average for men than for women, because they will work longer and get a larger pension. Women's longer life expectancy means that women can expect to spend the last years of their lives alone. If their pensions are too low because of their work histories, poverty among elderly women may increase.
Is Informality Welfare-Enhancing Structural Transformation? Evidence from Uganda

( 2011-10-01) Fox, Louise ; Pimhidzai, Obert

While Africa's recent decade of growth and poverty reduction performance has been lauded, concern has been expressed regarding the structure of this growth. In particular, questions have been raised about whether the growth is based on a commodities boom, or whether it is the beginning of a structural transformation that will lift workers from low-productivity jobs into higher-productivity ones. Macro evidence has suggested that the structural transformation has not started. But macro analysis misses the evidence that the process of transformation has started, because this process begins at the household level. Household livelihoods do not move from ones based on subsistence farming and household level economic activities into livelihoods based on individual wage and salary employment away from the household in one leap -- this process takes generations. The intermediate step is the productive informal sector. It is income gains at the household level in this sector that fuel productivity increases, savings, and investment in human capital in this sector. Ensuring that most households are able to diversify their livelihoods into the non-farm sector through productive informality not only increases growth, but also allows the majority of the population to share in the growth process. This paper illustrates this point with the case of Uganda which followed this path and experienced two decades of sustained growth and poverty reduction.
The Household Enterprise Sector in Tanzania : Why It Matters and Who Cares

( 2011-11-01) Kweka, Josaphat ; Fox, Louise

The household enterprise sector has a significant role in the Tanzanian economy. It employs a larger share of the urban labor force than wage employment, and is increasingly seen as an alternative to agriculture as a source of additional income for rural and urban households. The sector is uniquely placed within the informal sector, where it represents both conditions of informal employment and informal enterprise. This paper presents a case study on Tanzania using a mixed approach by combining both quantitative and qualitative analysis to examine the important role of household enterprises in the labor force of Tanzania, and to identify key factors that influence their productivity. Household enterprise owners are similar to typical labor force participants although primary education appears to be the minimum qualification for household enterprise operators to be successful. Access to location matters -- good, secure location in a marketplace or industrial cluster raises earnings - and access to transport and electricity is found to have a significant effect on earnings as well. In large urban areas, the biggest constraint faced by household enterprises is the lack of access to secure workspace to run the small business. Although lack of credit is a problem across all enterprises in Tanzania, household enterprises are more vulnerable because they are largely left out of the financial sector either as savers or borrowers. Although HEs are part of the livelihood strategies of over half of households in Tanzania, they are ignored in the current development policy frameworks, which emphasize formalization, not productivity. Tanzania has a large number of programs and projects for informal enterprises, but there is no set of policies and program interventions targeted at the household enterprise sector. This gap exacerbates the vulnerability of household enterprises, and reduces their productivity.
Beating the Odds : Sustaining Inclusion in Mozambique's Growing Economy

(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2008) Fox, Louise ; Benfica, Rui Manuel ; Ehrenpreis, Malcolm ; Gaal, Melissa S. ; Nordang, Hakon ; Owen, Daniel

This assessment, reflecting poverty's many dimensions in Mozambique, combines multiple disciplines and diagnostic tools to explore poverty. It draws on a combination of approaches and tools from three separate analytical diagnostics developed by the World Bank: poverty assessment, country gender assessment, and country social analysis. It uses monetary, human, and social indicators and combines quantitative and qualitative approaches to understand trends in poverty and the dynamics that shape them. The objective is to support the development and implementation of pro-poor policies that really work by taking poverty's multiple dimensions into account. Because Mozambique has not collected nationally representative household survey data measuring poverty status and outcome indicators since 2003, the report focuses primarily on the changes in poverty and household community welfare through that year. When data are available after 2003, the assessment uses them, including data from a special non representative survey developed for this report-the poverty and vulnerability survey. The starting point for the analysis uses multiple quantitative and qualitative indicators that describe levels of and changes in opportunities and outcomes for households and communities in Mozambique since 1997. The rest of the report explains these changes.
Education Reform in Mozambique : Lessons and Challenges

(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2012) Fox, Louise ; Santibañez, Lucrecia ; Nguyen, Vy ; André, Pierre

The report opens with a brief description of the conceptual framework that guided the analysis as well as the data used. The next chapter presents the analysis of changes in household behavior and educational outcomes related to the implementation of the reforms, at both the primary and secondary levels. The descriptive nature of this analysis does not allow for inferences regarding the effects of the reforms on enrollment and demand for education. The following chapter presents the results of an econometric impact analysis of the reforms to quantify the magnitude of the effects on enrollment. In considering priorities for the future, the Government is paying increasing attention to the impact of the investments in education on growth, jobs, and poverty reduction, as measured by increased earnings from employment, and particularly by improving opportunities for the labor force to move to higher productivity activities and livelihoods. The next chapter presents the results on the changing structure of employment in Mozambique between 2003 and 2008, the impacts of education on employment opportunities, and the implications of these changes for education policy. The final chapter integrates the education and labor force analyses and provides strategic recommendations as Mozambique continues to improve educational outcomes, particularly for those population groups that have had the most difficulty entering and remaining in school.
Working Out of Poverty : Job Creation and the Quality of Growth in Africa

(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2008) Fox, Louise ; Sekkel Gaal, Melissa

This paper explores Africa's economic performance and the creation of jobs over the decade and more since 1995, recognizing that some standard labor concepts are difficult to apply to conditions prevailing in Africa. The intent of the paper is to identify the economic factors behind the more successful outcomes and the options available for improving the quality of growth. The report focuses on several key issues: how has the structure of economic growth and labor demand shaped the job creation process? Does rigidity in African labor markets impede job creation? Have the quality and quantity of the labor supply affected job creation? What policies have been pursued to raise the quality of the African labor force? What does the expanding "informal" sector mean for the labor market and the quality of growth? Is it a route out of poverty or a low-skills trap? Throughout the paper, the focus is on the factors, exogenous and endogenous, that are linked to the outcomes, and the implications that these factors may have for raising the quality of Africa's economic growth. Some countries have reversed many of the vicious cycles underlying Sub- Saharan Africa's generally poor performance on job creation; those countries are highlighted where adequate data are available, and the lessons these experiences offer all stakeholders in meeting the growth and poverty reduction challenges of the future are pointed out. The paper concludes that Africa's record of poor economic performance has in part been an inevitable result of its colonial heritage-the low levels of human capital at independence. It is also a function of the ensuing policies pursued, especially those that led to the debt crisis and the subsequent recession and public sector restructuring. In most countries, these costs have been paid, and the future looks brighter as a result.