Digital connectivity and firm participation in foreign markets: An exporter-based bilateral analysis

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Imbruno, Michele; Cariolle, Joel; de Melo, Jaime
• 署名单位: Sapienza University Rome; Universite Clermont Auvergne (UCA); Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement (IRD); Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); University of Geneva
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2025.103551
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: Internet connectivity; ICT; Submarine cables; Export behavior

摘要

This paper studies how the bilateral digital connectivity resulting from the deployment of telecommunications SubMarine Cable (SMC) affects firm participation in export markets. Based on a heterogeneous firm model and using an unbalanced panel of bilateral trade data across 48 countries during the period 1997-2014, we find that an SMC connection between two countries is associated with an increase in the number of bilateral exporters in developed countries, together with a reduction in the number of bilateral exporters in developing countries. This negative association between bilateral connectivity and firm participation in export markets appears to be stronger in the poorest developing areas, where firms have lower digital absorptive capacity: Middle East & North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. The growth in world connectivity spurred by SMCs deployment has therefore had a heterogeneous effect on firms' decision to export, pushing more firms from high-income countries to enter export markets and some incumbent exporters from lower-income countries to exit them.