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Abstract
This dissertation consists of three essays investigating the opportunities and direct and indirect challenges in the transportation service industry of East Africa. The findings reveal factors that shape long-haul transportation in East Africa and the constraints to market integration for the regions staple food crops.The first essay investigates truck driver perceptions of sources of delays along the main transportation route in East Africa (EA) called the Northern Corridor (NC) road. This study uses survey data collected in October 2018 from truck drivers who frequent the NC. Due to the ordinal nature of the outcome variable, an ordered logit empirical approach is used to model the perception truck drivers have of obstacles causing unnecessary delays during cargo transportation. Findings provide insights for improving long-haul transportation efficiency in East Africa.The second essay examines factors that shape the economic reward profile and the on-road behavior - in the context of risk - of the NC truck drivers of Kenya. This study also uses survey data collected in October 2018 from truck drivers who frequent the NC. The presence of endogenous explanatory variables which are either measured as continuous covariates or discrete binary variates when modeling the economic reward profile necessitate the use of three-stage least squares (3SLS). The 3SLS recognizes and allows for, the non-independence of the error structures of the system of equations estimated. To model risk, a two-stage modeling procedure is undertaken where a probit model is estimated first followed by a selectivity regression. Findings highlight the critical areas for policy intervention on road safety. The third essay examines the constraints to market integration in East Africa by testing the law of one price (LOP) on commonly traded staple food crops. The study takes advantage of a shared price information system that records real-time daily prices of staple food crops commonly traded between Kenya and Uganda. The absolute LOP is tested by running level regressions on relative prices with city-pairs as the unit of observation. This study intends to present the role of macro issues in cross country commodity price differences.