Firms and export performance: does size matter?
ISSN: 0144-3585
Article publication date: 29 April 2020
Issue publication date: 26 August 2020
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between export performance and firm size.
Design/methodology/approach
Analysing a large sample of firms in the Vietnamese manufacturing sector, the authors employ a quantile regression approach to asses whether or not the relationship between exporting and firm size is dependent upon the extent of exporting that firms already undertake.
Findings
The authors find that increased firm size leads to higher export volumes. However, in sharp contrast to literature that largely focuses on considering a linear relationship between these two variables, the authors further find that the positive relationship becomes weaker as the extent of exporting activity increases.
Originality/value
In contrast to the earlier literature, a key novelty of the approach is that the authors obtain new insights in terms of establishing a nonlinear relationship between firm size and export performance in the case of Vietnamese manufacturing.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Funding support from the Ministry of Education and Training, Vietnam is gratefully acknowledged. We are also grateful for helpful comments provided by the anonymous referees. The usual disclaimer applies.
Citation
Ha, V.T.C., Holmes, M.J. and Le, T.M. (2020), "Firms and export performance: does size matter?", Journal of Economic Studies, Vol. 47 No. 5, pp. 985-999. https://doi.org/10.1108/JES-12-2018-0451
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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