ADJUSTMENT, INDUSTRIAL LOCATIONAL INCENTIVES AND STRUCTURAL TRANSFORMATION IN GHANA

Abstract

ABSTRACT A number of studies have focused on the Structural Adjustment Programs in Sub-Saharan Africa, but just a few have focused on the issue of spatial structural transformation under those programs. This paper focuses on such transformation with respect to Ghana's formal wood processing industry. Using an empirically- based qualitative analysis, the paper utilizes the government's industrial locational incentives under Ghana's program to explore post-adjustment spatial structural transformation involving the location pattern of formal wood processing firms, relative to regional development within the national framework. The extent to which the pre-adjustment geographical distribution pattern of firms, deemed as a structural problem, changed in response to the locational incentives is examined. It is shown that for those firms, adjustment was essentially a program which fashioned export sector rehabilitation, using new financial resources, and not for spatial structural transformation. The pre-adjustme...