Book Description
Extract: This study treats small scale industry in Kenya. It is common wisdom that small production units possess a number of virtues and that special effort is warranted to promote the growth of this subsector. Such a view is acceptable, but in need of some refinement. It is the argument of this paper that for each country there exists an optimum size distribution of firms. This optimum is determined at any point in time by technological factors and by the pattern of demand. Owing to market imperfections and government policies that are biased with respect to scale, observed shares of output and employment in many underdeveloped countries are heavily skewed toward large scale enterprise. This malproportionality is strikingly evident in the case of Kenya.
