Government Export Research Articles

What can we learn from service model analysis? An application in the government export finance sector

The service model approach, like business models in the private sector, is gaining increasing attention in public management literature. In line with this evolving discourse, our study analyzes service models in government export promotion. By exploring the use of service models and discussing key developments, we shed light on the diverse application of service models in the context of officially supported export credits – an under-researched field in which a lot of innovation is happening. We observe a limited number of traditional service models with significant relevance. In addition, our findings suggest a rising diversity that signifies innovation and the broadening scope of activities. We also uncover the underlying motivations and practical experiences associated with their implementation and provide valuable insights into the benefits they offer.

Relationship among government export support, perceived export stimuli, barriers and export performance

Relationship among government export support, perceived export stimuli, barriers and export performance

Wartime Trade Policy Measures in Comparison of the Historical Periods of the First World War and the Special Military Operation

With the beginning of the special military operation (SMO), a new type of foreign trade policy is forming, based on restrictions. History shows that the practice of restrictions on trade operations is not new. The article compares Russia’s trade policy measures introduced during the First World War of 2014–2018 and the SMO, which began in 2022. The goal is to identify tools that are not currently used. Restrictions on exports and imports, measures to stimulate imports, and measures to build new trade routes are considered. Even before the start of the SMO, from the moment of political aggravation, Russia limited the export of wood and fertilizers, which contradicted the Protocol on Accession to the WTO and the refusal of quantitative restrictions. Unfriendly countries that applied preventive sanctions against Russia, with the beginning of the SMO, denied Russia most favored nation treatment. As during the First World War, grains, flour and sugar were among the food products subject to government export restrictions. Both periods were characterized by measures to stimulate imports in an effort to provide industry with raw materials and equipment. Import restriction measures in the first period applied to luxury goods, in the second they took the form of sanctions against unfriendly countries. The war period was characterized by growing interest in the northern sea routes. Compared with World War I, modern export restriction policies were more varied in terms of product coverage, but lacked the specific details by export directions that were developed a century ago. Many of the modern measures allow exemptions only in relation to EAEU countries. In our opinion, exemptions from restrictions on the export of humanitarian goods could be made for the developing countries which are most in need of grain or fertilizers.

EXPORT MARKETING AND CORPORATE WEBSITE: THE CASE OF SMEs FROM SERBIA

For small and medium firms the Internet represents an important low-cost gateway to the international markets. The corporate website is one of the prerequisites for developing a successful Internet marketing strategy. The corporate website enables companies to communicate with stakeholders worldwide, present the company's vision and mission, products and services, contact potential buyers, and sell internationally. Although SMEs highly rely on Internet marketing, academic research on exporters' website characteristics is rare. Against such a backdrop, the paper aims to analyse specific characteristics of the websites of small and medium-sized exporters from Serbia. Website content analysis of promotional and transactional website attributes was conducted on a sample of 120 small and medium-sized exporters from Serbia. Promotional website attributes are linked to marketing communication goals, with greater exporters recognition, and value-adding through customer support, interactivity, and personalisation. Transactional content refers to transaction-specific information. Results will enable a better understanding of small and medium firms' web capabilities and how SMEs utilise different website attributes in their export marketing strategy. The main managerial implications and implications for government export promotion strategy will be discussed.

Effect of trade barriers on export performance during COVID-19 pandemic: a comparative study among South Asian textile industries

The study focused on determining essential government policies and trade barriers affecting the textile industry's export performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study has analysed the effect of government export policies on the export performance of the textile industry. This study has also compared factors among three South Asian textile industries, including Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. The study identified nine essential government export policies and trade barriers based on Industrial Organization View (I/O View). A panel regression model was used to analyse the significance of each government policy and trade barrier affecting textile export performance. Results of the study showed that currency exchange rates, the cost to export, time to export, political stability of the country, quality of infrastructure in the country, freedom from corruption, business cost of terrorism and economic stability in the country have a significant effect on export performance of the industry. In contrast, taxes on doing business have an insignificant effect on export performance. The Seemingly Unrelated Estimation (SUEST) test compared the differences in export performance of Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi textile industries due to government policies. The results showed that a higher level of time to export, cost to export and business cost of terrorism lead to the low export performance of the textile industry. At the same time, a higher level of currency exchange rates, political stability of the country, quality of infrastructure, freedom from corruption and economic stability in-country lead to the high export performance of the textile industry. Further, taxes on doing business have an insignificant effect on export performance. This study is among the few contributing to the textile industry during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to uncertain circumstances, it becomes hard for the government to identify important factors which could help textile exporters to survive and grow during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study has identified important government policies and trade barriers affecting textile exports based on strong theoretical support and has also compared and elaborated on the importance of each factor across three South Asian countries. This study will help policymakers reconsider export- related factors to enhance their textile exports and revive their economy after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Export Policy Initiatives: Conceptualization of Valid Measurement Scales and Constructs for Empirical Assessment

Firms view export policies as an external change agent that stimulates international business activities. In the past decades, developing countries have witnessed significant changes in their export policies to reduce financial and infrastructural barriers to international trade. India, with an objective to double its market share at the global level by 2020, has initiated a mix of policy measures in its Foreign Trade Policy since 2009. However, to measure the effectiveness of these policy initiatives on export business, no valid measurement scales or constructs have been developed for empirical assessment. Moreover, there is very little agreement in the literature about a conceptual definition of government export assistance as well as its operational definition. Hence, the objective of this study is to identify relevant policy initiatives and develop sub-dimensional constructs with valid measurement scales. This conceptualization is explored empirically with data from 400 exporters. The data identified four sub-dimensional measurement models that can be considered for future operations. The findings also provide useful practical guidelines and recommendations to exporters, policymakers and researchers.

Analyses of the Effects of Government Export Promotion Programs on Export Performance: Empirical Evidence for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Korea

Purpose - This study empirically examines the effect of the Korean government export promotion program (EPP) on small and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs) export performance using firm-level data. Unlike most previous studies that investigated some specific samples of firms, this study analyzes a vast amount of SME data of the Korean Small and Medium Business Administration over the period 2005 to 2008.
 Design/methodology - An endogeneity problem arises when a firm’s probability of being selected is correlated with the likelihood of successfully implementing EPPs. To control for the endogeneity of the EPPs in a relatively short-period sample, we employ 2-Stage Residual Inclusion (2SRI) RE-Tobit and bivariate Tobit procedure.
 Findings - Analyses show that Korean government EPPs have positive significant effects on SME exports. Empirical results also show that SME export activities are significantly encouraged by R&D investment and capital intensity, but not obviously by labor productivity.
 Originality/value - This study provides evidence that SME capital intensity, R&D investment, and the number of workers are significant determinants to SME exporting activities, whereas per worker labor cost and employee education are not. These results imply that even for SMEs, firm size is a major factor in promoting exporting activities.

Export finance and the green transition

AbstractAs emissions reach record levels, governments must implement and strengthen climate policies for the global pathway to net‐zero emissions by 2050. Climate finance plays a crucial role in the net‐zero transition. It refers to local, national, or transnational financing seeking to support mitigation and adaptation actions that address climate change. Public export–import banks (EXIMs) and government export credit agencies (ECAs) are highly influential actors for climate action. Although there is no consensus among EXIMs and ECAs on how to define climate finance, 20 institutions assessed in this research give evidence that they strongly support climate‐action‐related transactions: EXIM and ECA financing, guarantees, and insurance amounted to EUR 6.7–8.4 billion in 2020, much more than estimated by the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI). However, the results also reveal that EXIM and ECA lending, guarantee, and insurance activities must rise substantially in order to contribute to climate finance volumes required by 2030 as estimated by CPI. To retain their current proportion relative to other climate finance flows, assessed institutions would need to increase their climate financing 6.8 times to up to EUR 57.4 billion by 2030.

Using Variable Slope Total Derivative Estimations to Pick between and Improve Macro Models

Using the same data set, a researcher can obtain very different reduced form estimates just by assuming different macroeconomic models. Reiterative Truncated Projected Least Squares (RTPLS) or Variable Slope Generalized Least Squares (VSGLS) can be used to estimate total derivatives that are not model dependent. These estimates can be used to pick between competing macro models, improve current models, or create new models. A selected survey of RTPLS estimates in the literature reveals several common patterns: (1) as income inequality has surged around the world, the effect of changes in government spending (G), exports (X), and money supply (M-1) on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) have plummeted, (2) decreases in G, X, and M-1 cause GDP to fall more than equal increases in G, X, and M-1 cause GDP to rise, and (3) unusually large increases in G and M-1 cause their effect on GDP to plummet. These common patterns fit with a global glut of savings hypothesis, which predicts that an increase in savings will not cause an increase in production expanding investment. An appropriate model could be built around the idea that investors have a choice between investing to increase production or investing to earn rent or interest.

The Effects of Timing and Order of Government Support Mechanisms for SME Exports

When small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) enter export markets, they face liabilities of smallness and foreignness. Their chances of success increase if they receive some support. Thus, many governments provide some export support for SMEs having realized that success in exports helps firm success and creates positive spillovers. We test the efficacy of three such support mechanisms: support for strategic export planning, support for trade fair participation and participation in ministerial visits and compare their relative results in various “time dimensions” (Jones & Coviello, J Int Bus Stud 36(3):284–303, 2005). Unlike past studies, we go beyond testing the effect of one support mechanism and compare the effect of the above different support mechanisms. We also show the importance of considering different dimensions of time – chronological “clock” time, “stopwatch” reference time, time sequence, and effect length time. We found evidence for the benefit of receiving multiple support mechanisms and we explored the sequence of receiving multiple support mechanisms. More specifically, our results suggest that exports are best facilitated by first receiving support to attend a trade fair, then developing an export plan; and then participating a ministerial visit abroad. Also, our study suggests that effect length is an important, previously ignored, dimension of time to consider. Empirically, hypotheses are tested on a longitudinal data set of Estonian SMEs receiving different types of government export support during 2009–2017. The data set was constructed from registry data covering the entire population of Estonian firms.

Free lunch or vital support? Export promotion in The Netherlands

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to add to the debate concerning the merits of export promotion efforts by governments by investigating the effect of export promotion program (EPP) participation on the export performance of Dutch small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Design/methodology/approach The authors confront participation data of an EPP targeting SMEs with rich firm-level data and use propensity score matching techniques combined with regression analysis. Findings The authors show that exports generated by participants do generally rise in the years after program entry, however, export growth does not outpace that of comparable, but unsupported firms. Nonetheless, there is some evidence suggesting that export shares in sales rise faster among program entrants, particularly in the first and second years after participation. Furthermore, the authors present evidence suggesting that the probability of becoming a permanent exporter is higher for participants relative to beginning exporters that did not receive support from the program. Originality/value The analysis contributes to the still relatively small literature dealing with the impact of government export promotion instruments on export performance using firm-level micro-data. The subject of analysis are Dutch small businesses. SMEs, particularly operating in advanced economies, are a group that is not frequently considered separately in this respect.

Local response to global crisis – the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on SMEs and government export assistance programs in Central California

This study focuses on the effectiveness of export assistance programs (EAPs) perceived by the SMEs in Central California before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Through the survey data and semi-structured interviews conducted with representatives from community banks and related government agencies, we find that EAPs were perceived less effective in financial support, information services, export facilitating, and education and training-related programs during the pandemic. Meanwhile, SMEs engaged in international trade more actively sought government assistance benefits, including the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan during the pandemic, besides EAPs such as Export Credit Insurance.

Are Political Factors More Relevant Than Economic Factors in Firm-Level Renewable Energy Technology Export? Evidence from Path Analysis

Renewable energy technology (RET) firms are key economic entities in the export of RET-related products and components, in which RET firms’ exports are affected largely by policy and market. Nonetheless, the effects of policy and market factors on RET firm-level export have never received attention from researchers. This study aims to fill the gap by taking a political economy approach to establish a structural equation model to analyze the path of political-economic factor-firms’ market orientation-based export. This study reveals that RET firms’ market-orientation-based export enhancement depends entirely on political forces. Particularly, two government intervention instruments, environmental policy and export promotion policy, were highlighted. However, the effects of renewable energy policies on the exports of RET firms through market orientation are negative and statistically significant. This study proves that the effects of inter-firm competition and market attractiveness on RET firms’ exports through their market orientation are negative and statistically significant and insignificant, respectively. Further, this study demonstrates that RET firms’ market orientation has a significant positive effect on their export performance. We conclude that in order to improve RET-related policy effectiveness and efficiency, it will be useful to consider firms’ heterogeneity in response to external factors. Additionally, a full mediation model in the academic investigation of the effects of various external factors, including public policies and market factors, on firm-level export, and the implementation of firm-level export-induced policy, taking into account firms’ managerial interpretations to external factors, should be considered.

Interactions between Japan's “weaponized interdependence” and Korea's responses: “decoupling from Japan” vs. “decoupling from Japanese firms”

PurposeThis paper aims at exploring the interactions between Japan's export curbs against Korea, dubbed as “weaponized interdependence,” and Korea's decoupling from Japan' phenomenon in response. Thereby, it sheds light on the characteristics of the semiconductor industry, where the two economies' effective division of labor takes place. In addition, it attempts to typology the “decoupling from Japan” into two types. Furthermore, it deals with the political-economic implications of bilateral trade disputes and projects in the future.Design/methodology/approachThis paper segregates the economic concept of “decoupling” into “decoupling from Japan” and “decoupling from Japanese firms” to better analyze the related phenomenon that occurred in Korea in response to the Japanese government's export restrictions in 2019. Along with it, the paper attempts to observe the trade dispute between Korea-Japan from a political-economic point of view.FindingsThe main findings are: First, Korea's decoupling from Japan' does not necessarily mean “decoupling from Japanese firms”. When Korean firms had to decouple from Japan due to non-economic factors, some has circumvented the decoupling to maintain economic ties with Japanese firms in the market, stemming from long-term transaction relationships in the semiconductor industry. Second, the two countries were confronted in a modest manner, even though they seemed to be fighting like a fierce tit-for-tat chicken game as those economies are interdependent with one another. Hence, both put effort to avoid sober damages or disruptive results on two economies and the global semiconductor supply chain.Originality/valueThe originality of this paper is to typologize the characteristics of “decoupling from Japan” in Korea by segregating it into two types of decoupling. On the other hand, other previous studies appeal to focus on the decoupling phenomenon per se and are interested in its potential for success.

The Impact of Export Promotion Schemes on Agricultural Growth in Nigeria

This paper examines the impact of government export promotion schemes on the growth of agriculture in Nigeria. Employing an ARDL cointegration technique, impulse-response functions and variance decompositions, the results indicate a significant positive impact of the government export promotion schemes on agricultural output growth in the short- and long-run. The findings highlight the need to be selective in the choice of export promotion strategies in Nigeria. Most notably, government must not only provide more credit facilities to the sector but also ensure increased recurrent and capital expenditure in the agricultural sub-sector.

Do Export Activities Improve Small Firm Performance? Evidence from Indonesia

"Research Aims: This study investigates the link between involvement in direct export activities and firm performance, with reference to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Indonesia. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study employed primary data collected from questionnaires administered to 271 exporting SMEs in seven provinces in Jawa-Bali Region. The OLS and GLM regression techniques were employed to estimate the export impact model. Research Findings: The results show that export activities bring the highest performance improvement in product quality, moderate improvement in marketing and networking techniques, total sales, total profit, production technique or technology and worker productivity, and least improvement in domestic sales. SMEs' exports-induced performance improvement is positively affected by firm size, owners' education, the presence of foreign investors, and assistance from central government agencies, negatively affected by years of exporting, and shows an inverted U-shaped relationship with export intensity. Theoretical Contribution/Originality: The discourse of firm internationalization theories should not only focus on pre-export activities, but also post-export activities. Further, the discourse on the relationship between firm performance and degree of internationalization should consider non-linear relationship. Managerial Implications in the Southeast Asian Context: SMEs should keep actively participating in the government's export assistance programs in their post-export stage. Especially, exporting SMEs should maintain and strengthen their relationships central government agencies. In order to maintain and expand their export activities, SMEs may consider partnership with foreign investors. Research Limitations and Implications: Future research may investigate the specific export stimuli and export barriers that SMEs encounter in post-export stage. The scope of the study can be expanded to provincial or country comparison in Southeast Asia, taking into account differences in social and economic characteristics, or specified to a particular province/region or product group/industry. Other definitions of SMEs-such as those based on asset or turnover size-might be attempted. Data accuracy may also be improved through the use of factual (quantitative) data to replace some perceptual data used in the current study. "

Legal agreements: barriers and enablers to global equitable COVID-19 vaccine access

Law can serve as both an enabler and a barrier to global health, equity, and justice.1 The impact of legal determinants of health on the COVID-19 pandemic is evident where law is being used as a mechanism to enable or prevent global equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines. Barriers to equitable access are partly driven by vaccine nationalism2 with governments seeking to use law to secure priority access to future vaccines through Advance Purchase Agreements (APAs) with vaccine manufacturers. These bilateral legal agreements can be in a nation's interest, but given the uncertain success of individual COVID-19 vaccine candidates and the global spread of SARS-CoV-2, APAs are a gamble and erode collaboration between countries. Importantly, such bilateral legal agreements are likely to contribute to inequities and potentially extend the pandemic's time frame. By contrast, multilateral legal agreements could be the path back to global health security and justice by re-establishing norms of international solidarity, committing to global equitable vaccine access initiatives, and laying a foundation for a post-pandemic era built on multilateralism and cooperation.

The Effects of Timing and Order of Government Support Services for SME Exports and Firm Growth

When SMEs enter export markets, they face liabilities of smallness and foreignness. Thus, their chances of success increase if they receive some support. In much of the world, home governments have realized that success in exports helps firm success and that there are positive spillovers resulting from SME export success. Consequently, most home governments offer some export assistance services. In our paper, we test the efficacy of three such services: support for strategic export planning, support for trade fair participation and participation in ministerial state visits. Unlike in past studies, we go beyond testing the effect of one support mechanism and compare the effect of the above different support mechanisms. We also explore the temporal interactions including the importance of the order of receiving multiple support mechanism. We found evidence for the benefit of receiving multiple support mechanisms and support for the importance for the timing and order of receiving the different support mechanisms. Empirically, the study is tested on a data set of Estonian SMEs receiving different types of government export support services during the period 2009-2017. The data set was constructed from registry data covering the entire population of Estonian firms.

Concentration of oil sector or diversification in Saudi economy: consequences on growth sustainability

Oil sector contributes most of macroeconomic performance in Saudi Arabia. Using a period 1970-2018, we calculate the production, exports, government revenues, investment and employment concentration indices using normalized Herfindahl Hirschman index and test the effects of concentration indices on the economic growth. We find that exports and government revenues are highly concentrated and majorly depend on the oil sector. Employment is more concentrated by public sector and production is majorly concentrated on oil sector. Investment is shown relatively lesser dependence on the oil sector with compare to exports, production and government revenues. In the long run, we find the positive effects of production and government revenue concentrations on the economic growth and negative effects of exports and employment concentrations. Moreover, we find the Granger causality from production concentration to the economic growth, from government revenue and exports concentrations to the production concentration, from investment concentration to the export concentration and from production, investment and government revenue concentrations to the employment concentration.

DAMPAK KEBIJAKAN FISKAL DAN MONETER DALAM PEREKONOMIAN INDONESIA

The trade-off between achieving price stability and economic growth, especially in the short term is the impact of a decision-making dilemma for the conduct of fiscal policy or monetary policy in the Indonesian economy. The problem is what lies behind this study and aimed to determine the impact of fiscal and monetary policies on the Indonesian economy. The data used are secondary data sourced from Bank Indonesia and BPS variables namely GDP, Government Expenditure, Tax Revenue, Export, Exchange Rate, Money Supply, Interest Rates for time series from 2000 to 2012. Data analysis was performed using Two Stage Least Squares (TSLS) estimation with multiple linear regression models using Eviews 5.0 program assistance. The results of this study it can be concluded that the simultaneous equation model on IS to variable Interest Rate and a significant negative effect on GDP of Indonesia, while the Government Expenditure variable (G0), Export (X0) and Tax Revenue (Tx) and Exchange Rate (ER) effect positively and significantly to Indonesia's GDP, while the equation for the LM model of the Money Supply variables significantly and negatively related to Indonesia's GDP increased at a rate statistically a = 10% and for variable interest rate is not significantly to Indonesia's GDP.