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Who we are

With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

researcher spotlight

Liangzhi You

Liangzhi You is a Senior Research Fellow and theme leader in the Foresight and Policy Modeling Unit, based in Washington, DC. His research focuses on climate resilience, spatial data and analytics, agroecosystems, and agricultural science policy. Gridded crop production data of the world (SPAM) and the agricultural technology evaluation model (DREAM) are among his research contributions. 

Where we work

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Where we work

IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 80 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

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experts

Development Strategies and Governance

Margaret McMillan

Nonresident Fellow

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Bio

Margaret McMillan is a Nonresident Fellow in the Development Strategies and Governance Unit and an Associate Professor of Economics at Tufts University. She has published widely in the areas of international trade and investment focusing primarily on developing countries. Understanding the distributional consequences of international economic integration is the key focus of her work.

Prof. McMillan is also a Faculty Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a recipient of research grants from the National Science Foundation and the Center for Aids Research. In 2005, she was named the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Her research has been featured in the New York Times and the NBER Digest and has been published in leading economics journals such as the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Economic Growth, the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, the Journal of Development Economics, and the Journal of International Economics.

Prof. McMillan has worked in several African countries including Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, Mali, Tanzania, Uganda, and South Africa. Before coming to academia, she worked for a variety of organizations including the Peace Corps, Lehman Brothers, USAID, UNDP, and the World Bank. She holds a PhD in Economics (with distinction) from Columbia University, a master’s of Public Affairs from Princeton University, and a bachelor’s degree (summa cum laude) from Boston University.

Publications

Publications

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Journal Article

Africa’s manufacturing puzzle: Evidence from Tanzanian and Ethiopian firms

2024Diao, Xinshen; Ellis, Mia; McMillan, Margaret; Rodrik, Dani
Details

Africa’s manufacturing puzzle: Evidence from Tanzanian and Ethiopian firms

Recent growth accelerations in Africa are characterized by declining shares of the labor force employed in agriculture, increasing labor productivity in agriculture, and declining labor productivity in modern sectors such as manufacturing. To shed light on this puzzle, this study disaggregates firms in the manufacturing sector by average size, using two newly created firm-level panels covering Tanzania (2008–2016) and Ethiopia (1996–2017). The analysis identifies a dichotomy between larger firms with superior productivity performance that do not expand employment and small firms that absorb employment but do not experience much productivity growth. Large, more productive firms use highly capital-intensive techniques, in line with global technology trends but significantly greater than what would be expected based on these countries’ income levels or relative factor endowments.

Year published

2024

Authors

Diao, Xinshen; Ellis, Mia; McMillan, Margaret; Rodrik, Dani

Citation

Diao, Xinshen; Ellis, Mia; McMillan, Margaret; and Rodrik, Dani. Africa’s manufacturing puzzle: Evidence from Tanzanian and Ethiopian firms. World Bank Economic Review. Article in press. First published online August 10, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1093/wber/lhae029

Country/Region

Ethiopia

Keywords

Tanzania; Africa; Growth; Manufacturing; Productivity; Transformation

Language

English

Access/Licence

Limited Access

Links

https://doi.org/10.1093/wber/lhae029 Source record

Project

Policies, Institutions, and Markets

Record type

Journal Article

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Book Chapter

Agrifood processing in Africa: Status, challenges, and opportunities

2022Ellis, Mia; Fang, Jared; McMillan, Margaret S.
Details

Agrifood processing in Africa: Status, challenges, and opportunities

Ashift from agriculture to manufacturing was one of the hallmarks of job creation, poverty reduction, and rapid growth in low-income countries during the latter half of the 20th century. This experience in earlier decades of structural transformation was characterized by labor-absorbing, productivity-increasing manufacturing. Recent structural change in African countries has been markedly different—productivity gains are realized through reallocation of economic activity away from agriculture without the accompanying within-sector productivity growth in nonagriculture, and manufacturing in particular (Diao, McMillan, and Rodrik 2019; Diao et al., 2021; McMillan and Zeufack 2022). This chapter examines the extent to which agrifood processing follows these trends.

Year published

2022

Authors

Ellis, Mia; Fang, Jared; McMillan, Margaret S.

Citation

Ellis, Mia; Fang, Jared; and McMillan, Margaret S. 2022. Agrifood processing in Africa: Status, challenges, and opportunities. In 2022 Annual trends and outlook report: Agrifood processing strategies for successful food systems transformation in Africa, eds. Chakib Jenane, John M. Ulimwengu, and Getaw Tadesse. Chapter 5, Pp. 44-58. https://ebrary.ifpri.org/digital/collection/p15738coll2/id/136422

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Middle Africa; Eastern Africa; Southern Africa; Western Africa; Employment; Labour Productivity; Trade; Productivity; Agrifood Systems; Off-farm Employment; Food Systems; Food Processing

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-NC-ND-4.0

Source

Source record

Record type

Book Chapter

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Journal Article

Labor productivity growth and industrialization in Africa

2022McMillan, Margaret S.; Zeufack, Albert
Details

Labor productivity growth and industrialization in Africa

Manufacturing has made an important contribution to raising living standards in many parts of the world. Concerns about premature deindustrialization have made some observers skeptical about the potential for manufacturing to play this role in Africa. But employment in African manufacturing has grown rapidly over the past 20 years. These employment gains have been accompanied by: (i) large increases in the number of small manufacturing firms; (ii) limited employment gains in large firms; and (iii) robust labor productivity growth in Africa’s large firms. Limited employment growth in Africa’s large manufacturing firms is partly a result of the capital intensity of the manufacturing subsectors in which African countries are most engaged—the processing of resources—and partly a result of rising capital intensity in manufacturing. The potential for manufacturing to raise living standards in Africa depends on indirect job creation by large firms through backward and forward linkages and increasing labor productivity in small firms.

Year published

2022

Authors

McMillan, Margaret S.; Zeufack, Albert

Citation

McMillan, Margaret S.; and Zeufack, Albert. 2022. Labor productivity growth and industrialization in Africa. Journal of Economic Perspectives 36(1): 3-32. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.36.1.3

Keywords

Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Middle Africa; Eastern Africa; Northern Africa; Southern Africa; Western Africa; Small Enterprises; Standard of Living; Resources; Employment; Labour Productivity; Manufacturing; Deindustrialization; Linkages

Language

English

Access/Licence

Limited Access

Links

https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.36.1.3 Source record

Project

Policies, Institutions, and Markets

Record type

Journal Article

Blogs

Charting a new path to income convergence
IFPRI Blog
 | 
May 11, 2017

Charting a new path to income convergence

By Margaret McMillan, Dani Rodrik, and Claudia Sepúlveda

A new book examines the diverse reasons behind variable growth rates among seven developing countries.

The Myth of de-industrialisation in sub-Saharan Africa
IFPRI Blog
 | 
May 21, 2014

The Myth of de-industrialisation in sub-Saharan Africa

By Margaret McMillan

The following post by IFPRI Senior Researcher Margaret McMillan was originally published on the Financial Times This is Africa website. There is even evidence that a healthy manufacturing sector can help to bridge the gap in income levels between rich and poor countries. But the historical importance of manufacturing in economic growth has led some observers to be sceptical about […]

Events

Structural Change, Fundamentals, and Growth: A Framework and Case Studies
IFPRI Policy Seminar

 | 

May 11, 2017, 12:15 – 1:45 pm

Structural Change, Fundamentals, and Growth: A Framework and Case Studies

Speakers: Chair: This volume is the outcome of a project funded by The World Bank Knowledge for Change Program. The authors acknowledge the support of the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM) led by IFPRI.  

News

January 29, 2020 | In the News

[GangMoon Sung’s economic magnification] ‘Best student’ why ‘diagnosis of growth’ is needed in Korea (Korean Economic Magazine)

Korean Economic Magazine published an article on structural change and economic growth. The article references the findings in the book Structural Change, Fundamentals and Growth coedited by IFPRI Research Fellow Margaret McMillan, Dani Rodrik, and Claudia Sepulveda. According to the book, investment in the basic conditions highlighted by the endogenous growth theory of macroeconomics and the structural changes that are important to […]

January 27, 2017 | In the News

Why Latin America and Africa Struggle to Grow (Bloomberg View)

Bloomberg View published a piece analyzing a new paper by IFPRI Deputy Division Director Xinshen Diao and Senior Research Fellow Margaret McMillan that examines the explanations for slow growth in the economies of Latin America and Africa South of the Sahara. Their research showed that Latin American economies have suffered from a lack of positive structural […]

Research

Topics/Countries