Export Experience Research Articles

Software industry: An opportunity for Latin America?

Many developing countries are looking for entry points to the expanding informatics market. Software has been viewed in some of them as offering an opportunity to exploit low wage and capital requirements. This paper presents the main characteristics of the software market and industry in Latin America. It analyzes the local supply of (traded) software, including the origin, scope of activities and size of firms, their main products and technology in use. Export experiences from several Latin American countries are also briefly presented, recognizing that further research on the issue is still required. On the basis of this empirical evidence, the comparative advantages and obstacles that the region faces to establish a solid software industry are discussed. It is argued that considerable efforts would be required to transform current expectations into reality. A basic point is that even if good software can be developed, marketing and distribution barriers, particularly for packaged software, are difficult to penetrate. The main policy issues relating to the building up of a software industry are summarized, taking the heterogeneity of markets and products into account.

The Determinants of Export Decisions and Attitudes to a Distant Market: Norwegian Fishery Exports to Japan

This paper focuses on the process that occurs when active exporters, reacting to new opportunities, either enter or increase exports to psychologically distant markets. The overall purpose of the study is to provide guidance for export promotion activities. Since future exports cannot be observed directly, the attitude regarding future exports is introduced as this study's primary dependent variable. A model is formulated where firm and product attributes, as well as perceived barriers/opportunities are proposed as determinants of attitudes towards future exports. Previous export experience in the relevant market is also introduced as an additional variable in explaining attitude towards future exports. The model is tested in a two-step procedure with multiple discriminant and regression analysis. The data used to test the model is taken from a survey of Norwegian exporters of fishery products.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR ENTREPRENEURS UNDER FREE TRADE

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the opportunities available to Canadian entrepreneurs as a result of the new Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States. It suggests ways in which. Canadian entrepreneurs can pursue the large U.S. market whether they are engaged in manufacturing, distribution or other activities. It gives details of a current study being conducted on relating the success of high-technology entrepreneurial businesses in Canada to their export experience. Relatively little research has been undertaken into the impact of Free Trade on Canadian entrepreneurs. This is a fruitful area for potential research and several ideas are discussed. Conclusions are that firms must realize from the beginning that exports may eventually become of far more importance than domestic markets and so devote proportional attention to the development of those markets, especially in high technology. Entrepreneurs considering entering the U. S. market should talk to others who have experienced the U. S. m...

The Role of Information Assistance in Small Firms' Export Involvement

Dr. Rolf Seringhaus is assistant professor of international marketing at Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario, Canada. A firm's need for export marketing information is a function of both its stage in the export involvement process and and the related state of export knowledge and experience. Awareness and perceived usefulness of informational assistance provided by government are investigated in a sample of small Canadian industrial manufacturing firms over the early part of the exporting process. Conclusions are drawn from the changing role of informational assistance during export involvement and implications for export marketing management and public policy are suggested.

Exporting: Does Sales Volume Make a Difference? — Reply

While it is intuitively logical that different types of firms need different types of export assistance, the difficulty comes in developing and testing various approaches to segmenting firms for export development purposes. To date, four types of possible segmentation schemes have been developed in the export assistance literature. One deals with grouping firms according to their size. The others segment firms by grouping them into various international stages according to their export experience,by attitudes of management within the firms, and by the degree to which firms are product or manufacturing oriented. In research reported earlier (Czinkota and Johnston 1981), we have empirically tested each of these approaches and found that the stages of internationalization best segment firms with respect to exporting. The size of a firm as an export determinant is a distant second in usefulness. Yet the effect of the structural variable of firms' size on exporting is worth continued research because current policy uses size as the criterion for export promotion assistance.

The anti-export bias in commercial policies and export performance : Some evidence from the recent Brazilian experience

The literature provides ample empirical evidence of the ill effects of heavy protection on the economic performance of developing countries, but there is little evidence directly linking export behaviour in individual countries with their protection and commercial policies. Yet, if an anti-export bias exists, it is reasonable to infer that changes in it will have an effect on export performance. This paper uses Brazilian data to illustrate this issue. The recent export experience of Brazil is reviewed. A brief model is developed which relates commercial policy to export performance. Part of this model is estimated empirically from pooled Brazilian time series and inter-industry cross-sectional data for the 1970-77 period. The results of the analysis suggest that the anti-export bias does exert an important influence on export supply behaviour in Brazil. Considerable sensitivity in export performance to changes in trade policies, especially import restrictions, is evident. The paper concludes that countries seeking to improve their export performance should evaluate their domestic market protection as well as policies directly related to export incentives.

FCIA: Help or Hindrance to Exports?

In an attitudinal survey of U.S. exporters drawn from 35 states and 2 territories, managers identify three federal programs as having a strong positive impact on their exporting activities: the Domestic International Sales Corporation, the ExportImport Bank, and the Foreign Credit Insurance Association. Attitudes differ depending on firms' product lines, export experience, size, and the percentage that exports contribute to annual gross sales. This paper focuses on exporters' attitudes toward the Foreign Credit Insurance Association, a subentity of the Eximbank, and incorporates respondents' remedies for improving this trade-facilitating tool. In spite of attempts to improve and extend export credit insurance, after 20 years of operation its use has been limited to insuring only two percent of U.S. exports. Suggestions are made for improving and extending the use of export credit insurance.

Lancashire in Decline: A Study in Entrepreneurship, Technology, and International Trade

Part 1 Entrepreneurship and technology: American rings and English mules rings and mules - part two Lancashire and the automatic loom overall efficiency and labour productivity in Lancashire and Massachusetts before World War I investment in Lancashire between the World Wars some final remarks about technical progress in Lancashire. Part 2 International trade: Lancashire's export experience prior to World War I Lancashire's export experience between the World Wars cotton textiles and international comparative advantage.

The Stagnation of Brazil's Exports: Reply

In a recent issue of this Journal Thomas C. Lowinger presented a Comment on an earlier paper of mine.' My paper discussed three features of Brazilian trade and development during the years 1947-1962. First, I pointed out that, contrary earlier discussions that had considered Brazilian exports mainly in terms of coffee and its unpromising prospects, the stagnation of aggregate Brazilian export receipts during the period under consideration had been due largely the performance of noncoffee exports. Second, I noted that this poor export experience had been caused not by adverse world demand conditions, but by Brazilian policies that had limited the supply of noncoffee exports.2 The implication was that, if the Brazilian authorities would relax the measures discriminating against exports of noncoffee products, they could realistically expect substantial increases in noncoffee exports and thus in total foreign exchange earnings. Finally, I analyzed the special features that export stagnation, coming together with rapidly growing domestic demand, had imparted Brazilian economic development. Lowinger's Comment does not dispute my analysis in the latter two areas. He does, however, believe that to attribute the overall stagnation of Brazil's exports 'largely' its noncoffee exports would not be in accord with the post-1953 evidence. In addition, he considers it misleading view the entire post-World War II period in terms of one explanatory model; and suggests 1953, the year of a Brazilian devaluation, for demarcating two periods in Brazil's postwar export experience. I will discuss these two issues in sequence. There is a straightforward way test my hypothesis that the behavior of Brazil's aggregate export receipts (Xa) has been governed mainly by the behavior of noncoffee exports, (Xn0). This is regress annual observations of the first differences of Xa against

The Export Experience of Developing Countries

The Export Experience of Developing Countries

THE EFFECTS OF INDUSTRIALIZATION ON EXPORTS OF PRIMARY‐ PRODUCING COUNTRIESa

SUMMARY The effects of industrialization on exports of primary‐producing countries. In the period from pre‐war to 1955, the volume of exports from the "semi‐industrial" countries (i. e. the industrializing group of primary‐producing countries) failed to rise, whereas exports from the "non‐industrial" countries (i. e. all other primaryproducing countries outside Western Europe, North America and the Soviet bloc) rose by about 60% in volume.There are two schools of thought about the main causes of this lag in exports from the semi‐industrial countries. The first school places emphasis on the defciency of demand by the industrial countries for the products of the semi‐industrial countries; the second emphasises a deficiency of supply of exports resulting from the process of industrialization in the producing areas. Recent annual reports of GATT have presented statistical comparisons of the exports of the semi‐industrial and the non‐industrial countries which appear to support the supply‐deficiency argument.The GATT analysis, however, suffers from two deficiences. First, it makes inadequate allowance for variations in world demand for particular commodities; second, it makes no allowance for the influence of relative price changes on the exports of particular countries. The present article attempts to build on the GATT analysis by extending it to include these two additional factors.A special index of world demand is constructed for the exports of each of the semi‐industrialized countries, based on the movement in world trade of individual commodities and using the commodity‐pattern of exports from each country as weights. Further, an index of export unit values of world trade in the commodity "bundle" of exports from each country is computed and related to the actual export unit value index of each country. Regressions of export volume on the indices of world demand and relative prices show a close correspondence between exports from a given country and the relevant world demand changes (as represented by world trade). The mean co‐efficient for the relative price variable is ‐1.7, but the standard error is high (±0.9). The inclusion of a dummy variable to indicate the presence or absence of sheltered market yielded no significant result, but this was probably because the variable used is a very imperfect indicator of the degree of shelter enjoyed. The inclusion of industrial growth in the regressions indicated that if there is any significant relation between industrialization and exports it is a positive, and not a negative, one.A more detailed commodity analysis shows that the export experience of the non‐industrial countries was in total much the same as that of the semi‐industrial countries, if the comparison is limited to directly competitive commodities. Finally, it is shown that there is a positive association between industrial growth and the “capacity to import”.The implications of the analysis are (I) that industrialization per se in the period covered did not have a retarding effect on the exports of the semi‐industrial countries as a whole; (2) the retardation in their exports was due essentially to the slower rate of growth in demand for their "bundle" of commodity exports than for those of the non‐industrial countries; and (3) that the pace of industrialization has itself been heavily dependent on the progress of exports. These generalizations appear to fit most closely the views of the "demand‐deficiency" school mentioned above.