Sub-national market-supporting institutions and export behavior

Janssen, Frank [UCL] Ngo, Vi Dung [Hanoi School of Business and Management (HSB), Vietnam]

Ngo Vi Dung and Frank Janssen examine whether the market-supporting institutions at the sub-national level influence the export behaviors of firms in the context of an emerging economy, namely Vietnam. Analysing a dataset of 7818 Vietnamese firms, including 719 exporting firms, they find that export propensity is mainly and negatively influenced by provincial financial conditions. Provincial attitudes, bureaucracy, and legal and informal charges positively drive the firm’s export intensity. The predictability of domestic laws and regulations negatively influences the firm’s export intensity. In addition, institutions do matter more for smaller, younger and private firms. Nevertheless, the influence of sub-national market-supporting institutions on export mode choice is ambiguous.