Research

Working papers, publications and data on decentralisation, urbanisation and local public goods in Africa, and on global value chains and regional development.
Oliver Harman speaking on a panel

My research is about how power and connection shape economic development. On power, I measure the capacity, authority and means of urban governments in Africa, and what they do for local public goods. On connection, I ask how foreign investment and global value chains land in particular regions, and whether the green transition changes who captures the value.

Primary fields: urban and regional economics; political economy of development; global value chains and foreign direct investment. Secondary: fiscal decentralisation and local public finance; economic geography; computational measurement of institutions.

Drafts not linked below are available on request.

Working papers

  • Measuring Metropolitan Authority in Africa: A Regional Authority Index for Five Countries, 1994–2024 Harman, O., Hayward, J., and Sampó, G. IGC Working Paper, in preparation Extends the Regional Authority Index to the metropolitan tier, where Africa has had almost no coverage. Constitutional and statutory instruments are coded in sequence with model assistance and validated against independent human coding.

  • Green Foreign Direct Investment in Africa Alvarez-Vilanova, J., Crescenzi, R., Harman, O., and Lippitsch, C. In preparation The first systematic, taxonomy-based assessment of green FDI in Africa, classifying 9,935 greenfield projects (2013–2025) against the EU and Rwandan green taxonomies with large language models. More than one in six dollars of inward FDI is green, and three-fifths of that lies outside renewable energy and waste.

    Abstract

    Green foreign direct investment (GFDI) is increasingly recognised as a lever for sustainable development, yet its scale and scope across African economies remain poorly understood. Existing statistics rely on broad sectoral classifications that label renewable energy and waste as ‘green’ while overlooking greening dynamics across all other sectors. We address this gap by providing the first systematic, taxonomy-based assessment of GFDI in Africa. Combining project-level data on 9,935 greenfield investments (2013–2025) with the green taxonomies of the EU and Rwanda, and leveraging Large Language Models for activity-level classification, we distinguish between green FDI in renewable energy and waste, green FDI beyond energy, and non-green FDI. We embed these flows within a green global value chain framework that positions GFDI as a channel for upgrading. Three findings emerge. First, more than one in six dollars of inward FDI into Africa is classifiable as green, with three-fifths occurring outside renewable energy and waste. Second, beyond-energy GFDI concentrates in knowledge-intensive manufacturing, suggesting that upgrading beyond the energy sector is linked to industrial capability. Third, renewable energy and beyond-energy GFDI follow distinct spatial footprints with different policy implications. A comparative analysis of EU, Rwandan, and South African taxonomies reveals that taxonomy design directly shapes which investments governance systems can see, incentivise, and track.

  • Transforming SME Integration into Global Value Chains Harman, O., and Shukla, R. In preparation Programmes that connect small firms to multinational buyers are usually judged by how many come to trade with the buyer. Using a decade of records from TRANSFORM, a partnership between Unilever, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and EY, we find that an integration count reflects the buyer’s purchasing decisions as much as the programme’s work.

    Abstract

    Programmes that connect small firms to multinational buyers are usually judged by the number that come to trade with the buyer. We ask what that number measures, using the internal record of TRANSFORM, a decade-long partnership between Unilever, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and EY in the form of a corporate accelerator. We use a regression across 90 enterprises, configurational analyses coded from the enterprises’ own applications, and nineteen interviews with founders and with Unilever and programme staff. Sixteen per cent of enterprises ever integrated, and half of those relationships had lapsed by March 2026. What an enterprise brings to the programme predicts integration; what happens during it does not. In the programme team’s retrospective record none of 24 enterprises without a Unilever relationship at entry integrated, against 14 of 66 with one; on the enterprises’ own applications the gate is weaker; past it, no combination of what the enterprise itself brings, as recorded at entry, is sufficient. Enterprises referred by a Unilever local market team integrate at four times the rate of any other route; those funded under the environmental pillars no more often than those under the social ones. Staff interviews locate the reason on the buyer’s side of the transaction: a contract needs several Unilever functions with unrelated objectives to agree at once, and an impact credential counts with the teams that fund pilots, not those that sign contracts. Enterprises that never integrated report capability, credibility and access to other buyers as often as those that did. An integration count therefore reflects the buyer’s purchasing decisions as much as the programme’s work; such programmes should also be judged on what their participants keep.

  • Degree of Urbanisation in Ethiopia Franklin, S., Harman, O., Kakoulaki, G., Molla, K., and Read, M. In preparation Ethiopia has not held a census since 2007, and central and regional estimates of its number of urban centres differ by a factor of nearly three. A replicable delineation built on the Global Human Settlement Layer reconciles the two counts and shows that Ethiopian urbanisation has been overwhelmingly extensive: urban built-up cover grew nearly four times faster than population.

    Abstract

    Ethiopia has not conducted a population census since 2007, creating a policy gap and leaving policymakers without spatially disaggregated evidence on the country’s urban transformation at a moment when consequential decisions about housing, fiscal transfers, and infrastructure investment are being made. Central and regional government estimates of the number of urban centres—approximately 900 and 2,600 respectively—diverge by a factor of nearly three. This study develops a replicable automated delineation pipeline, built entirely on the open access Global Human Settlement Layer at 100 m pixel resolution, to identify, count, and track Ethiopian urban areas between 2005 and 2025. The pipeline applies a “grow and clip” procedure—population-dense cores are expanded using population-scaled buffers and clipped to observed built-up cover—producing 2,643 urban polygons in 2025, of which 997 have estimated populations above 5,000. We show that the 900-versus-2,600 discrepancy corresponds to different population thresholds applied to the same underlying settlement structure: both counts are recoverable from a single delineation output. The more consequential finding concerns the character of urbanisation. Built-up cover within delineated urban areas grew by 366 percent over two decades, nearly four times faster than estimated population growth, while core densities declined by 35 to 50 percent across most city size classes. Ethiopian urbanisation has been overwhelmingly extensive—driven by horizontal expansion rather than densification—with Addis Ababa as the principal exception. This pattern varies sharply by region: SNNP and Sidama experienced growth in city built cover exceeding 1,900 and 3,000 percent respectively from low bases, while Tigray’s urban system grew by 85 percent, reflecting the disruption of conflict. By foregrounding directly observed physical measures—built cover and built volume—over population estimates derived from outdated demographic projections, the methodology remains informative where census data are severely outdated. The pipeline is fully parameterised and designed for replication in other data-scarce environments.

Publications

Articles

  • Unequal Progress and Barriers for Women in Economics Berland, O., Harman, O., and Moreau-Kastler, N. (2026) Reviews of Economic Literature, 1. Open access. doi:10.21627/aekcyv04. Earlier version: “Pipelines or pyramids: A review of barriers for women in economics”, IGC Working Paper (2023) Reviews the literature on gender inequality in economics. Women now make up 26% of published economists but only 5% of those in the top percentile of research influence, where recent progress has, paradoxically, been concentrated. Article Working paper (SSRN) IGC version Media and commentary: Barriers for women in economics (IGC blog)

    Abstract

    This paper reviews the literature on gender inequality in the academic field of economics, highlighting both the unequal progress that women have experienced and the persistent barriers that they continue to face. Our analysis of this recent research and available data highlights that the reduction in women’s absence in the field has been heterogeneous. While women now constitute 26% of published economists, their presence sharply declines at higher ranks, with only 5% representation among economists in the top percentile of research influence. Notably, recent progress has paradoxically concentrated at this highest level, indicating shifting institutional norms and evolving perceptions about women’s contributions. We further explore how understanding women’s behaviors and career choices, and gender biases in evaluation and workplace environments, contribute to women’s underrepresentation in the field. Our discussion extends to the labor market for economists, drawing parallels with broader labor trends and examining how gender-biased treatment and hiring processes affect women’s advancement. Finally, we turn to policy interventions that are key in promoting gender balance, focusing on networks, mentorship, role models, and representation.

Books

Book chapters

  • Local and Regional Development Crescenzi, R., and Harman, O. (2026) In De Marchi, V., Rabellotti, R., and Van Assche, A. (eds), Encyclopedia of Global Value Chains, Edward Elgar

  • From Local Regions in the EU to Those in Ukraine (and Back Again): How FDI and Global Value Chains Tie Our Local Economies Together Crescenzi, R., and Harman, O. (2023) Chapter 24 in Gorodnichenko, Y., and Rashkovan, V. (eds), Supporting Ukraine: More Critical Than Ever, CEPR Press Chapter

  • A Policy Framework for Infrastructure Development and Global Value Chains Crescenzi, R., and Harman, O. (2021) Chapter 6 in Asian Infrastructure Finance 2021: Sustaining Global Value Chains, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Chapter

Doctoral thesis

  • Power and Place: Decentralisation, Urbanisation and Local Economic Development in Africa DPhil in Sustainable Urban Development, University of Oxford, in progress. Supervised by Vlad Mykhnenko The thesis asks where power sits in African urban government, and what follows from that placement. The first three results chapters measure it through a framework of capacity, authority and means (CAM): how citizens rate their governments, what the law grants them, and the fiscal resources behind both. The last two ask what follows for local public goods, and for the new cities Uganda created in 2020.

Results chapters

  • Urban Capacity How urban government capacity compares with central government capacity across African regions, how that balance has moved since 2002, and whether urban settlement structure conditions it. Capacity is a composite of citizen-reported performance, trust, service delivery and the absence of corruption from Afrobarometer, compared with central government in the same country and survey round so that the question is the balance between tiers rather than the level of either.

  • Metropolitan Authority How much formal authority African metropolitan governments hold, how it has changed since the early 1990s, and how it compares globally. Constitutional and statutory instruments are coded against the metropolitan adaptation of the Regional Authority Index, read in sequence with model assistance and validated against independent human coding, with results for Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda and Uganda. Case studies examine the gap between what statute grants and what governments exercise.

  • Fiscal Means and CAM Integration How large and how autonomous the fiscal footprint of African local government is, using IMF Government Finance Statistics, with revenue read alongside the power to raise it and expenditure alongside discretion over it. The chapter then brings capacity, authority and means together for the first time, at the metropolitan region and survey round.

  • Local Public Goods in Africa How local public goods can be measured across African urban areas, how provision is distributed and has changed over two decades, and whether trajectories vary with urbanisation. Four indicators built from enumerator observations, each applying a different theoretical filter, are triangulated and matched to urban population growth in a regional panel.

  • Decentralisation and Development: Uganda’s New Cities Which dimensions of local power a change in city status and resources moves when formal authority is not decentralised alongside it. Developed as the featured paper above.

Data

  • RAI(Metro) Africa A Regional Authority Index at the metropolitan tier for African countries since the early 1990s, coded from constitutional and statutory instruments with model assistance and validated against independent human coding. Open release of the data and coding pipeline in preparation

  • CAM Africa Database Capacity, authority and means indicators for African metropolitan regions, combining Afrobarometer, legislative and IMF fiscal data. Citable deposit in preparation

  • Mapping Municipal Finance Reform in Developing Countries Interactive data visualisation, International Growth Centre View

Grants

  • 2025 Green Foreign Direct Investment in Africa, with J. Alvarez-Vilanova, R. Crescenzi and C. Lippitsch £15k+
  • 2025 Authority in African Cities, International Growth Centre. Co-investigator, with V. Mykhnenko (PI) £10k+
  • 2025 Regional Studies Association Research Network on Green(ing) Global Value Chains for Sustainable Regional Development, with V. De Marchi, R. Crescenzi and C. Hulke £10k+
  • 2024 Urban Expansion and Drivers of Emissions in Cities, with S. Barzin and C. Riom £15k+
  • 2023 Spatial Vulnerabilities in Punjab, with G. Bryan, H. Shaikh and N. Tsivanidis £15k+
  • 2021 COVID-19 Economic Evidence Grant, UKRI. Co-thematic lead, cities research Programme £1m+
  • 2021 Transformative Economic Policy Programme, Bangladesh, FCDO. Thematic lead, cities research Programme £2.25m+

Selected presentations

  • 2026 Still Too Early—or Too Slow? Urbanisation and Unequal Public Goods in African Cities. CSAE Conference, University of Oxford
  • 2025 Authority in African Cities. Sustainable Urban Development Seminar, University of Oxford
  • 2025 (Local) Public Goods in Africa. RSA Student and Early Career Conference, London
  • 2025 Urban Government Capacity and Decentralisation Hotspots in Africa. CSAE Conference, University of Oxford
  • 2024 Urban Government Capacity and Decentralisation Hotspots in Africa. ODI Global Public Financial Management Workshop, London; RSA Winter Conference, London; RSA Student and Early Career Conference, Cambridge
  • 2024 Green Global Value Chains for Sustainable Regional Development. International Business Seminar, Henley Business School, University of Reading
  • 2023 Green Global Value Chains for Sustainable Regional Development. Opening plenary, RSA Summer Conference, Ljubljana
  • 2023 Upgrading as a Pathway to Structural Transformation. UNU-WIDER and ACRC workshop on African urbanisation and structural transformation
  • 2022 Harnessing Global Value Chains for Regional Development. Book launch, LSE
  • 2020 Spatial Productivity for Regional and Local Development. OECD Spatial Productivity Lab, Trento

Service

  • Co-organiser, Urbanisation and Poverty Reduction Research Conference (2019–2025) International conference and policy workshop, co-hosted with the World Bank and George Washington University 9th (2024–25, with the City of Cape Town): Urban economics in action: Addressing African cities’ challenges IGC World Bank Videos 8th (2023–24, with the Millennium Challenge Corporation): Urban expansion and the future spatial organisation of cities IGC World Bank Videos 7th (2022–23): Climate change and sustainable cities IGC World Bank Videos 6th (2019, with the Inter-American Development Bank): three days on research, policy and city application IGC World Bank Opening session

  • Regional Studies Association Research Network on Green Global Value Chains for Sustainable Regional Development (2025–) With V. De Marchi, R. Crescenzi and C. Hulke Network

  • Special session co-organiser RSA Annual Conference, Florence, and RSA Winter Conference, London (2024); RSA Regions in Recovery Global E-Festival (2021)

  • Editorial board, Global Investments and Local Development blog, LSE (2024–)

  • Pre-scoping contributor, IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Cities (2024)

  • Referee Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society; Economic Development Quarterly; Environment and Urbanization; Journal of Economic Geography; Spatial Economic Analysis; Edward Elgar; Routledge; Regional Studies Association; C40 Cities; International Centre for Tax and Development; International Growth Centre