Urban development-induced relocation of wholesale markets and informal intermediary network reconstitution in Addis Ababa sub-cities: a difference-in-differences estimation of relocation-timing thresholds

Urban development-induced relocation of wholesale markets in Addis Ababa sub-cities displaces the informal intermediary networks through which traders access credit, storage and onward buyers, yet the timing at which network reconstitution becomes detectable has not been formally characterised. the present analysis treats the before-after-control-impact design as the appropriate estimator for such relocation-timing thresholds and evaluates its operating characteristics under a declared variance structure. No observational data are used or claimed. The analysis specifies a design with between-cluster standard deviation of 6.0, residual standard deviation of 4.5 and intraclass correlation of 0.64, and estimates power across 2000 design cells defined by cluster counts of 8, 16, 24 and 32 and effect sizes of 3, 5 and 8 percentage points. The results indicate that 52 clusters are required to detect a 5 percentage-point effect at 80 per cent power, that minimum detectable effect declines steeply as cluster count rises, and that the estimator's confidence intervals widen asymmetrically at small cluster counts. The contribution is a design-based specification of the cluster counts and effect magnitudes at which relocation-timing thresholds in intermediary network reconstitution can be identified, together with the boundary conditions under which the before-after-control-impact estimator is informative for market relocation research.