Do Export Promotion Agencies Promote New Exporters?

Cruz, Marcio

World Bank Group, Washington, DC

关键词: ASSETS;    ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION;    ASYMMETRIES OF INFORMATION;    AVAILABILITY OF DATA;    BENEFICIARIES;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7004
RP-ID  :  WPS7004

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Do export promotion agencies impact theprobability of non-exporting firms to export? In the lastdecade many countries have introduced export promotionagencies to support their firms to deal with asymmetricinformation problems and make feasible additional gains fromtrade. Some recent studies have found that the support ofthese agencies has been effective with respect to theintensive and extensive margins of trade. Nevertheless,because of the lack of information on non-exporting firms,few of them analyze their impact on the probability ofpromoting new exporters. This paper evaluates the impact ofthe Brazilian Trade and Investment Promotion Agency(Apex-Brasil) on firms' export status using a uniquefirm-level dataset that covers the full manufacturing sectorin Brazil. To identify the impact of Apex's assistanceon firms' export propensity, the paper relies on aprocedure of matching difference-in-difference estimators.The empirical results show evidence of the program'spositive impact on the probability of promoting newexporters. The effect is heterogeneous according tofirms' size categories and sectors. Furthermore, thefindings suggest that the program has spillover effects.Although the evidence of positive effect is robust, the lowpropensity to export for both the treated and the controlgroups reinforces the importance of other firms'determinants (for example, productivity), which is widelyemphasized by the trade literature.