UNU-MERIT Working Papers Series

Africa Sector Database (ASD): Expansion and update

Emmanuel Buadi Mensah & Adam Szirmai #2018-020

Since the construction of the Africa Sector Database (ASD) at the Groningen Growth and Development Centre, there has been a wave of statistical reforms in some of the countries in the ASD leading to significant revaluations of GDP. These reforms have provided a clearer picture of the size and structure of production of the countries involved (Sy, 2015). We update the ASD to reflect these statistical changes. Most importantly, following the methodology of ASD, we expand the ASD by constructing sectoral data for seven new African countries: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda and Uganda. This has resulted in an expanded database (from the 1960s to 2015) covering about 80% of GDP in sub-Saharan Africa.

JEL Classification: E01, O11, O47

Keywords: Africa, Data, Employment, Sector, Value Added

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