The Oxford Handbook of the Ethiopian Economy

From a war-torn and famine-plagued country at the beginning of the 1990s, Ethiopia is today emerging as one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa. Growth in Ethiopia has surpassed that of every other sub-Saharan country over the past decade and is forecast by the International Monetary Fund to exceed 8 percent over the next two years. The government has set its eyes on transforming the country into a middle-income country by 2025, and into a leading manufacturing hub in Africa.

The Oxford Handbook of the Ethiopian Economy studies this country's unique model of development, where the state plays a central role, and where a successful industrialization drive has challenged the long-held erroneous assumption that industrial policy will never work in poor African countries. While much of the volume is focused on post-1991 economic development policy and strategy, the analysis is set against the background of the long history of Ethiopia, and more specifically on the Imperial period that ended in 1974, the socialist development experiment of the Derg regime between 1974 and 1991, and the policies and strategies of the current EPRDF government that assumed power in 1991.

Including a range of contributions from both academic and professional standpoints, this volume is a key reference work on the economy of Ethiopia.

Fantu Cheru, Senior Researcher and Emeritus Professor, African Studies Centre, Leiden University, The Netherlands,Christopher Cramer, Professor of the Political Economy of Development, SOAS, University of London, UK,Arkebe Oqubay, Minister and Coordinator of Economic Sectors and Senior Adviser to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia

Fantu Cheru is Emeritus Professor of International Relations, American University, Washington DC, USA, and a senior researcher at the African Studies Centre, Leiden University, The Netherlands. Between 1998 and 2001, Prof Cheru was the UN Special Rapporteur on Foreign Debt for the Human Rights Commission in Geneva. He was Associate Senior Fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Sweden, and the North-South Institute, Ottawa, Canada. From 2007 to 2012, Cheru was Research Director at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, Sweden. Dr Cheru was a member of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Panel on Mobilizing International Support for the New Partnership for African Development (2005-07) as well as Convener of the Global Economic Agenda Track of the Helsinki Process on Globalization and Democracy, Finland. Dr Cheru has served both as adviser and consultant to many governments and donor institutions and is on the editorial board of several scholarly journals.


Christopher Cramer is Professor of the Political Economy of Development at SOAS, University of London. A Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, he is also Vice-Chair of the Royal African Society and a former Chair of the Centre of African Studies in the University of London. He chairs the International Scientific Committee of the African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics (APORDE), based at the DTI in South Africa; was the principal investigator on the Fairtrade, Employment and Poverty Reduction in Ethiopia and Uganda research project; has worked in South Africa and Ethiopia on the 'industrialisation of freshness'; and, amongst other publications, wrote the prize-winning Civil War is Not a Stupid Thing: Accounting for Violence in Developing Countries. He has undertaken commissions for the World Bank, UNCTAD, ILO, EU, SIDA, DfID, and other agencies, and has worked with policy officials in Ethiopia, South Africa, and Mozambique.

Arkebe Oqubay is a Minister and Senior Adviser to the Ethiopian Prime Minister and has been at the centre of policymaking for over 25 years. He is a former Mayor of Addis Ababa and Minister of Works and Urban Development. He currently serves as board chair of several leading public organisations and international advisory boards. He is a research associate at the Centre of African Studies in the University of London. His work includes Made in Africa: Industrial Policy in Ethiopia (OUP, 2015); African Economic Development: Evidence, Theory, and Policy (OUP, 2019); and China-Africa and an Economic Transformation (OUP, 2019). He was recognized as one of the 100 most influential Africans of 2016 and a 'leading thinker on Africa's strategic development' by the New African for his work on industrial policies.

Part I: Context, Concepts, and History
1. Introduction, Fantu Cheru, Christopher Cramer, and Arkebe Oqubay
2. Ethiopia's transition from a traditional to a developing economy (1890s-1960s), Shiferaw Bekele
3. Ethiopia's political economy from the imperial period to the present, Christopher Clapham
4. Land tenure and land policy in Ethiopia (1950-2000), Teferi Abate Adem
5. Federalism in Ethiopia's transformation, Kidane Mengisteab
6. The interface between federalism and development in Ethiopia, Assefa Fiseha and Fiseha Haftetsion Gebresilassie
7. Ethiopia's constitutional framework and legal institutions for development, Menberetsehai Tadesse and Belachew M. Fikre
8. Ethiopia's 'economic diplomacy' and regional integration, Fantu Cheru and Zinabu S. Rekisa
Part II: Economic Development
9. Economic policy and structural transformation in Ethiopia, Mekonnen Manyazewal and Admasu Shiferaw
10. Ethiopian financial sector development, Yohannes Ayalew Birru
11. Financing Ethiopia's development, Mekonnen Manyazewal
12. Infrastructure and economic transformation in Ethiopia, Seid Nuru Ali
13. Financial balances and the development of the Ethiopian economy, Ken Coutts and Christina Laskaridis
14. Trade policy in Ethiopia (1991-2016), Berihu Assefa Gebrehiwot
15. Policy, political economy, and performance in Ethiopia's coffee sector, Christopher Cramer and John Sender
16. Livelihoods and mobility in the border regions of Ethiopia, Laura Hammond
17. Green and climate-resilient transformation in Ethiopia, Haileselassie A. Medhin and Alemu Mekonnen
18. Assessing poverty trends in Ethiopia (1990-2015), John Sender
Part III: Social Policy and Development
19. Poverty and inequality in Ethiopia (1995/96-2015/16), Tassew Woldehanna and Mesele W. Araya
20. Growth, poverty, and distribution in Ethiopia, Abebe Shimeles
21. Ethiopia's changing demography, Assefa Hailemariam
22. Economic policy and food security in Ethiopia, Deborah Johnston and Helen Walls
23. Changes in child undernutrition in Ethiopia (2000-2016), Kalle Hirvonen, Derek Headey, Jenna Golan, and John Hoddinott
24. Social protection in Ethiopia, John Hoddinott and Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse
25. Education and economic development in Ethiopia (1991-2017), Zinabu Samaro Rekiso
Part IV: Agriculture and Rural Transformation
26. Agriculture's changing role in Ethiopia's economic transformation, Stefan Dercon and Douglas Gollin
27. The transformation of smallholder crop production in Ethiopia (1994-2016), Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse
28. Rural finance and smallholder farming in Ethiopia, Guush Berhane and Kibrom A. Abay
29. Performance and institutions of the Ethiopian coffee sector, Florian T. Schafer, Tadesse Kuma Workako, and Bart Minten
30. Private coffee plantations in Ethiopia, Florian T. Schafer
31. Constraints on the Ethiopian Floriculture Industry, Ayelech Tiruwha Melese
32. Agricultural markets in Ethiopia, Bart Minten, Seneshaw Tamru, and Thomas Reardon
33. Livestock production in Ethiopia, Fantu Nisrane Bachewe and Fanaye Tadesse
34. Women's empowerment in rural Ethiopia, Likimyelesh Nigussie and Annet A. Mulema
Part V: Industrialization and Urban Development
35. Industrial policy and late industrialisation in Ethiopia, Arkebe Oqubay
36. Structure and performance of the Ethiopian manufacturing sector, Arkebe Oqubay
37. The Ethiopian manufacturing sector: Productivity, export, and competitiveness, Admasu Shiferaw and Mans Soderbom
38. Building an industrial workforce in Ethiopia, Carlos Oya
39. The private sector in Ethiopia's transformation, Mulu Gebreeyesus
40. Light manufacturing in Ethiopia: The apparel export industry, Lindsay Whitfield and Cornelia Staritz
41. Technological learning and industrialisation in Ethiopia, Tesfachew Taffere
42. The legal framework for the protection of foreign direct investment in Ethiopia, Won L. Kidane
43. Rural-urban linkages in Ethiopia, Tadele Ferede and Belay File
44. Urbanisation and industrial development in Ethiopia, Tegegne Gebre-Egziabher and Edlam Abera Yemeru
Part VI: Structural Transformation and the African Continent
45. A New Structural Economics perspective on Special Economic Zones in Ethiopia, Justin Yifu Lin, Jiajun Xu, and Sarah Hager
46. The concept of a 'developmental state' in Ethiopia, Ha-Joon Chang and Jostein Hauge
47. A Japanese perspective on Ethiopia's transformation, Kenichi Ohno and Izumi Ohno
48. Institution building for industrialisation: The Ethiopian Investment Commission, John Sutton
49. Three sectoral policies in Ethiopia's structural transformation, Carlos Lopes
50. Growing with depth: What African countries can learn from the Ethiopian experience, K.Y. Amoako