Garth Frazer

Biography

Garth Frazer is Associate Professor of Business Economics and Public Policy at the University of Toronto, with affiliations at the Department of Management (UTSC), Rotman School of Management, and the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Professor Frazer’s research lies at the intersection of international trade and industrial development, with a focus on Africa. He has lived in Kenya and India, and has performed field research in Ghana and Rwanda.

While the core focus of his research involves empirical determinants of growth and development within firms in Africa, this focus has led him to contribute more broadly to empirical methodologies in a variety of research topics and areas related to firms and industries. In an effort to accurately measure firm productivity in the African context, he has co-contributed to the development of a procedure for handling simultaneity in production function estimation. To accurately measure the impact of international trade preferences and trade agreements on African country exports, he co-developed a methodology for estimating the impact of tariff changes that carefully handles issues of the endogeneity of trade policy, namely that countries strategically choose which goods to target for trade liberalization, and with which partners. In an effort to explore the impact of human capital, both formal education and traditional forms of apprenticeship training, on firm performance and worker compensation, he has developed a novel methodology for accurately estimating the returns to human capital that takes into account workers’ unobserved abilities.

His current research is focused on the value of imports in the African context, as well as the value of mobile phones for economic growth in Africa, and the value of the extended family to the performance of a firm. He is a member of the Trade Research group of the International Growth Centre (IGC), and an Associate Editor of the Journal of African Economies. He is actively engaged in policy issues in both Canada and Africa.