Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/203962
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
wiiw Working Paper No. 97
Publisher: 
The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (wiiw), Vienna
Abstract: 
This paper adds to the small but growing literature that considers a relationship between the way a firm serves foreign markets and its subsequent performance. The current paper is the first to consider this issue for a sample of sub-Saharan African countries and includes data on both manufacturing and services firms. Results from a number of parametric and non-parametric tests for manufacturing industries indicate that there is a clear productivity ordering with firms undertaking outward FDI performing best, followed by exporters with domestically oriented firms performing least well. The results for services firms are more nuanced and indicate that while exporters and firms undertaking outward FDI are more productive than domestically oriented firms, there is no significant difference in productivity between these two types of firms. Despite this, average productivity and point estimates from the regression analysis on services firms suggest that the productivity of exporting firms is larger than that for firms undertaking outward FDI.
Subjects: 
exports
foreign direct investment
productivity
services firms
JEL: 
F14
F21
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.