Person:
Abreha, Kaleb
Author Name Variants
Fields of Specialization
International economics,
Industrial organization,
Development economics
Degrees
ORCID
External Links
Departments
Office of the Chief Economist for Africa Region
Externally Hosted Work
Contact Information
Last updated
January 31, 2023
Biography
Kaleb Girma Abreha is an economist in the Office of the Chief Economist for the Africa Region at the World Bank. He was also a World Bank Africa fellow. Before joining the World Bank, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Economics and Business Economics and Department of Management, Aarhus University (Denmark). In addition to research, he lectured and assisted several undergraduate and graduate courses in economics, international business, and strategic management at universities in Denmark and Ethiopia. He has a PhD in economics from Aarhus University (Denmark), an MSc in agricultural economics from the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), and a BA in economics from Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia). Kaleb’s research focuses on industrialization, international trade and investment, global value chains, productivity, exchange rates, and CEOs and firm performance. His research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as the World Bank Economic Review and the World Economy.
Publication Search Results
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Publication
Importing and Firm Productivity in Ethiopian Manufacturing
(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2019-10)This paper investigates the causal relationship between importing and firm productivity. Using a rich dataset from Ethiopian manufacturing over the period 1996–2011, I find that most firms rely on production inputs from the world market. These firms are better performing as shown by significant, economically large import premia. I also find strong evidence of self-selection of more productive firms into importing which is indicative of sizable import market entry costs. To examine the causal effect of importing on firm productivity, I use a model in which the static and dynamic effects of importing are separately estimated. The estimation results provide support to learning-by-importing. However, the productivity gains are small in size compared to similar findings in other studies. I provide some evidence in support of firms’ limited absorptive capacity in explaining the small productivity gains.