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Zeufack, Albert G.

Office of the Chief Economist for Africa Region
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Zeufack, Albert (ed.)
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Micro-foundations of macroeconomics
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Office of the Chief Economist for Africa Region
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Last updated: April 3, 2023
Biography
Albert G. Zeufack is the World Bank Country Director for Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sao Tome and Principe. Prior to this assignment, from 2016 to 2022, Dr. Zeufack held the position of Chief Economist for the World Bank’s Africa region. A Cameroonian national, Dr. Zeufack joined the World Bank in 1997 as a Young Professional and started his career as a research economist in the macroeconomics division of the research department. Since then, he has held several positions in the World Bank’s Africa, East Asia and Pacific, and Europe and Central Asia regions. Between 2008 and 2012, when on leave from the World Bank, he served as Director of Research and Investment Strategy/Chief Economist for Khazanah Nasional Berhad, a Malaysian Sovereign Wealth Fund. He previously worked as Director of Research at the Natural Resource Governance Institute, and before that he co-founded the Natural Resource Charter.
Citations 11 Scopus

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Publication
    Fiscal Multipliers over the Growth Cycle : Evidence from Malaysia
    (2012-03-01) Rafiq, Sohrab; Zeufack, Albert
    This paper explores the stabilisation properties of fiscal policy in Malaysia using a model incorporating nonlinearities into the dynamic relationship between fiscal policy and real economic activity over the growth cycle. The paper also investigates how output multipliers for government purchases may alter for different components of government spending. The authors find that fiscal policy in Malaysia has become increasingly pro-cyclical over the last 25 years and establish that the size of fiscal multipliers tend to change over the growth cycle. A 1 Malaysian Ringgit rise in government (investment) spending leads to a maximum output multiplier of around 2.7 during growth recessions, and around 2 in normal times. The returns to government spending in Malaysia are greater when the focus is on public investment, as opposed to consumption. Changes in tax policy are less effective in stimulating economic activity than direct government spending. These results provide empirical backing to conjectures in the recent literature implying that procyclicality in fiscal policy reduces the effectiveness of fiscal actions in emerging markets.
  • Publication
    Risk Sharing in Labor Markets
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2003-09) Bigsten, Arne; Collier, Paul; Dercon, Stefan; Fafchamps, Marcel; Gauthier, Bernard; Gunning, Jan Willem; Oduro, Abena; Oostendorp, Remco; Pattillo, Cathy; Soderbom, Mans; Teal, Francis; Zeufack, Albert
    Empirical work in labor economics has focused on rent sharing as an explanation for the observed correlation between wages and profitability. The alternative explanation of risk sharing between workers and employers has not been tested. Using a unique panel data set for four African countries, Authors find strong evidence of risk sharing. Workers in effect offer insurance to employers: when firms are hit by temporary shocks, the effect on profits is cushioned by risk sharing with workers. Rent sharing is a symptom of an inefficient labor market. Risk sharing; by contrast, can be seen as an efficient response to missing markets. Authors evidence suggests that risk sharing accounts for a substantial part of the observed effect of shocks on wages.
  • Publication
    Market Access, Supplier Access, and Africa's Manufactured Exports : An Analysis of the Role of Geography and Institutions
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006-06) Elbadawi, Ibrahim; Mengistae, Taye; Zeufack, Albert
    In a large cross-country sample of manufacturing establishments drawn from 188 cities, average exports per establishment are smaller for African firms than for businesses in other regions. The authors show that this is mainly because, on average, African firms face more adverse economic geography and operate in poorer institutional settings. Once they control for the quality of institutions and economic geography, what in effect is a negative African dummy disappears from the firm level exports equation they estimate. One part of the effect of geography operates through Africa's lower "foreign market access:" African firms are located further away from wealthier or denser potential export markets. A second occurs through the region's lower "supplier access:" African firms face steeper input prices, partly because of their physical distance from cheaper foreign suppliers, and partly because domestic substitutes for importable inputs are more expensive. Africa's poorer institutions reduce its manufactured exports directly, as well as indirectly, by lowering foreign market access and supplier access. Both geography and institutions influence average firm level exports significantly more through their effect on the number of exporters than through their impact on how much each exporter sells in foreign markets.
  • Publication
    Learning to Export : Evidence from Moroccan Manufacturing
    (World Bank, Washington D.C., 2002-04) Fafchamps, Marcel; El Hamine, Said; Zeufack, Albert
    The authors test two alternative models of learning to export: productivity learning, whereby firms learn to reduce production cost, and, market learning, whereby firms learn to design products that appeal to foreign consumers. Using panel, and cross-section data on Moroccan manufacturers, the authors uncover evidence of market learning, but little evidence of productivity learning. These findings are consistent with the concentration of Moroccan manufacturing exports in consumer items - the garment, textile, and leather sectors. It is the young firms that export. Most do so immediately after creation. The authors also find that, among exporters, new products are exported very rapidly after production has begun. The share of exported output nevertheless, increases for 2-3 years after a new product is introduced. Old firms are unlikely to switch to exports, even in response to changes in macroeconomic incentives. The authors find a positive relationship between exports, and productivity, and conclude that it is the result of self-selection: it is the more productive firms that move into exports. Policy implications are discussed.
  • Publication
    Structural Transformation and Productivity Growth in Africa: Uganda in the 2000s
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-12) Ahmed, Sabin; Mengistae, Taye; Yoshino, Yutaka; Zeufack, Albert G.
    Uganda’s economy underwent significant structural change in the 2000s whereby the share of non-tradable services in aggregate employment rose by about 7 percentage points at the expense of the production of tradable goods. The process also involved a 12-percentage-point shift in employment away from small and medium enterprises and larger firms in manufacturing and commercial agriculture mainly to microenterprises in retail trade. In addition, the sectoral reallocation of labor on these two dimensions coincided with significant growth in aggregate labor productivity. However, in and of itself, the same reallocation could only have held back, rather than aid, the observed productivity gains. This was because labor was more productive throughout the period in the tradable goods sector than in the non-tradable sector. Moreover, the effect on aggregate labor productivity of the reallocation of employment between the two sectors could only have been reinforced by the impacts on the same of the rise in the employment share of microenterprises. The effect was also strengthened by a parallel employment shift across the age distribution of enterprises that raised sharply the employment share of established firms at the expense of younger ones and startups. Not only was labor consistently less productive in microenterprises than in small and medium enterprises and larger enterprises across all industries throughout the period, it was also typically less productive in more established firms than in younger ones.