@article{82e5f33b76084f4ebaad118ba14b6d0c,
title = "Are seminars on export promotion effective? Evidence from a randomised controlled trial",
abstract = "This paper investigates the impacts of informational and motivational seminars on export promotion targeting small and medium enterprises in the traditional apparel and textile clusters in Vietnam. To control for biases due to self-selection, we conducted a randomised controlled trial and invited randomly selected firms to participate in 1-day seminars. Because only some of the invited firms participated in the seminars, we employ an instrumental variable approach in which the dummy variable for a random invitation is used as an instrument for quantifying the effects of participation. We find that seminar participants were more likely to sense the difficulties of the export procedures and were, on average, unlikely to start exporting in the short run. However, the seminars encouraged large firms, which possibly embody higher productivity and absorptive capacity, to start exporting shortly after the seminars. This effect was not sustained in the long term without additional stimuli. We have also identified spillover effects of participants on non-participants through informal information networks within the cluster. Overall, the results suggest that the provision of information about export is useful only to adequately productive larger firms with a sufficient absorptive capacity.",
keywords = "Vietnam, export promotion, impact evaluation, randomised controlled trial, small and medium enterprises",
author = "Kim, {Yu Ri} and Yasuyuki Todo and Daichi Shimamoto and Petr Matous",
note = "Funding Information: This study was conducted as part of a project titled {\textquoteleft}Empirical Analysis on Determinants and Impacts of Formation of Firm Networks,{\textquoteright} which was undertaken at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade, and Industry (RIETI). Financial support from JSPS Kakenhi Grants (Nos. 25101003 and 26245037) and Waseda University is gratefully acknowledged. The authors also thank an anonymous referee, Andrew Bernard, Emily Blanchard, Masahisa Fujita, Beata Javorcik, Fukunari Kimura, Kozo Kiyota, Yong Suk Lee, Tuan Anh Luong, Masayuki Morikawa, Marc Muendler, Jacob Munch, Kentaro Nakajima, Aya Suzuki, Frederic Warzynski, Makoto Yano, and the seminar participants at Keio University, RIETI, Waseda University, Empirical Investigations in Trade and Investment 2016 at Hanoi, the Hayami Conference, and the 2016 spring meetings of the Japan Society of International Economics for their helpful comments. The opinions expressed and arguments employed in this paper are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of RIETI, Waseda University, the University of Tokyo, or any institution with which the authors are affiliated.",
year = "2018",
month = nov,
doi = "10.1111/twec.12658",
language = "English",
volume = "41",
pages = "2954--2982",
journal = "World Economy",
issn = "0378-5920",
publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell",
number = "11",
}
