Ethiopia & Eritrea

Ethiopia was the first country in which Robin carried out fieldwork and became one of the most important countries of study for his work on multinational firms and transfer pricing. He visited initially in April 1972 on behalf of UNCTAD and again for the Ethiopian Government on two occasions in 1975. Ethiopia was to be a subject of detailed and influential study for over six years and later when he returned in 1993 to advise the Government of Eritrea on a strategy for trade and industry. He was additionally involved with the historical work of Richard Pankhurst with whom he wrote a fascinating joint paper included here and translated into Amharic on the history of Ethiopian trade and class. He learnt much from Pankhurst, other knowledgeable students of Ethiopian history - such as Adi Cooper, Richard Disney and Patrick Gilkes - and close Ethiopian friends. See an account of this period of Robin’s work in a personal autobiography Revolution, Love and Growing Up by Worku Lakew 2016.

Here we also provide a range of papers and reports, including two key theoretical unpublished papers Robin wrote on HVA (“From Colony to Contract”) and a case study on Ethiopia (“Class, State and the World Economy”) while working at IDS. We also include two official reports, one for UNCTAD published in 1974 on the transfer of technology to Ethiopia and a 1993 Report for the Eritrean Ministry of Trade and Industry about the role of aid.

In 1975-6 on the basis of his previous work for UNCTAD he was invited back and wrote a number of reports for the Ethiopian Government funded by the IDS on the manufacturing sector, including a ‘Code on Compensation’, together with new and re-visited case studies based on interviews and visits to some 45 firms. Some of them we include here for their historical interest. 

They are striking also for the emphasis he placed on the analytic power of a case study. This was a working method which he used in his 1960s Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) classes and then at the London Business School. The forensic work on the sugar multinational HVA in Ethiopia published in Dutch and widely debated was seminal.

Robin had a fascination for detail which could be key for those seeking advice and the resulting analysis had enduring political influence for Ethiopia and Eritrea in a period when understanding the role of multinational and national compensation were vital issues.

 FURTHER READING

• Robin Murray, “Administration and industrial development in Eritrea”, a report to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Tourism, November, 1993

• Robin Murray, “An Eritrean Diary: a personal picture”, 1993 

• Robin Murray and Richard Pankhurst, “Class and Trade: A Case Study of Ethiopia”, paper for the Conference on Public Choice and Development: The New Institutional Economics and Third World Development, London, 17th-19th September 1993. Drawings provided by Richard Disney.

• Robin Murray, “Ownership, Control and the Market”, New Left Review, no.164, 1987

• Robin Murray, “From Colony to Contract: HVA and the Retreat from Land”, IDS, 1981  (also translated into Dutch)

• Robin Murray, “HVA and the Nationalisation of the Sugar Industry in Ethiopia”, IDS, May 1976 

• Robin Murray, “HVA - A Note”, IDS, 1975

• Robin Murray, “A Code for Compensation of Nationalised Assets”, Government of Ethiopia, 1976 

• Robin Murray, “Glass and Bottling Making Share Company”, IDS, 1975

• Robin Murray, “Class, State and the World Economy: a Case Study of Ethiopia”, paper presented to Conference on New Approaches to Trade, IDS, 1975

• Robin Murray et al, “Major Issues arising from the transfer of technology”, a case study of Ethiopia, Report by the UNCTAD secretariat. Geneva, United Nations, 1974

• Robin Murray, “Three Case Studies of the Transfer of Technology to Ethiopia”, IDS, 1972

• Robin Murray, “The Steel Company of Ethiopia: A study in international financial management”, 1972 (See also, Robin Murray, “The Chandarias: a Case Study of a Kenyan Multinational” in R Kaplinsky (ed.) Multinational Firms in Kenya, OUP, 1978)

• Robin Murray, “Case Study: Debre Breman Wool Factory”, IDS, 1972