Technology diffusion & absorptive learning
When do imported technologies generate domestic learning, upgrading and sustained productivity—rather than low-value assembly?
Africa ↔ Asia · Growth · Technology
Growth is not the same as transformation.
Research on how trade, investment, institutions and new technologies become productive capabilities—and better livelihoods—in developing economies.
Research atlas
Africa–Asia development relations viewed through capabilities, production structures and long-run growth.
01 · DiffusionTechnology → absorptive capability
02 · StructureTrade → productive transformation
03 · InclusionAI → job-creating productivity
Research agenda
01
Four lenses on development.
A connected agenda: from the arrival of a technology or investment to the local capabilities that determine who benefits.
Africa–Asia economic relations
How the composition of trade, foreign investment and development cooperation shapes African growth, industrialization and policy space.
AI readiness & inclusive productivity
Which combinations of skills, management, digital infrastructure and organization allow firms in developing economies to convert AI access into broad-based gains?
Institutions, maintenance & long-run growth
Why the maintenance of physical and human capital—and the institutions behind it—can matter as much as new investment for durable development.
The recurring question
Development outcomes emerge from complementarities—not isolated inputs.
α
What local capability is the binding constraint?
β
Does external engagement alter the structure of production—or only its scale?
γ
Which institutions convert a short-run opportunity into persistent growth?
Selected current work
02
Questions under active investigation.
Projects span firm-level evidence, macroeconomic mechanisms and the institutional history of South–South cooperation.
P.01
Are African firms ready for artificial intelligence?
Firm capabilities · AI adoptionA firm-level inquiry into the digital, human-capital, managerial and organizational foundations of meaningful AI adoption across Africa.
P.02
Trade–investment complementarities and job-creating productivity
China–Africa · ManufacturingExamining whether China’s trade and investment engagement jointly expands productive employment in African manufacturing—or instead generates enclave growth.
P.03
Technology diffusion and absorptive learning in Vietnam
Upgrading · Education · ImportsInvestigating why access to advanced machinery does not automatically move an economy beyond assembly, and which forms of learning unlock upgrading.
P.04
From Bandung to TICAD and FOCAC
South–South cooperation · InstitutionsTracing how an Afro-Asian political vision became institutionalized through competing and complementary development platforms led by Japan and China.
Latest book · 2026
The Missing Pieces of Development
What Asia reveals about coherence, capabilities, and Africa’s economic transformation
Why do countries accumulate roads, universities, technology and foreign investment yet fail to transform? The book argues that the missing element is coherence: capabilities, institutions, finance, learning and productive assets must reinforce one another.
01 · System
Coherence over isolated inputs
02 · Learning
Capabilities that convert access into use
03 · Africa
A route to structural transformation
Analytical approach
03
Mechanisms first. Identification always.
Theory and evidence are used as mutual discipline: each sharpens what the other can credibly claim.
Theory disciplines measurement; evidence disciplines theory.
The objective is not methodological ornament. It is to distinguish scale effects from structural change, correlation from mechanism, and adoption from effective use.
Growth theory
Solow–Swan, augmented human-capital models, endogenous and semi-endogenous growth, technology diffusion, CES production and threshold mechanisms.
CESMRWNelson–PhelpsThresholds
Causal evidence
Panel estimators, instrumental variables, dynamic panels, event-study designs, spatial dependence and robust long-run estimation.
FE / REIV–2SLSSystem GMMARDL / ECMDCCE
Data architecture
Country panels, firm surveys, bilateral trade structures, foreign investment, institutional indicators and geospatial proxies assembled for reproducible analysis.
WBESWDIUN ComtradePWTNight lights
From question to policy relevance
01Development puzzle
02Explicit mechanism
03Credible identification
04Robustness & heterogeneity
05Institutional implication
Selected contributions
04
A sustained inquiry into trade, learning and growth.
Representative contributions from a broader body of work on Africa’s development and its economic relations with Asia.
African Economies in the Shadow of China: Effects of Bilateral Trade Structure on Economic Growth in Africa
China–Africa · Growth
Assessing the Effects of Trade-Induced Technology Imitation on Economic Growth in Africa
Technology · Trade
Emerging Patterns in Sino-African Trade and Potentials for Enterprise Development
Enterprise · Structural change
Research purpose
Development is a conversion problem.
Capital, technology and market access create possibilities. Capabilities, institutions and productive learning determine whether those possibilities become shared prosperity.