Brown Bag Seminar by Marion Jansen and Olga Solleder: SME Competitiveness Outlook 2018: Business Ecosystems for the Digital Age

ABSTRACT:
Digitalization and the rise of the platform economy are rapidly changing the way in which firms do business. The publication describes major drivers of change, opportunities and challenges they create for SMEs, and suggests ideas on how different players in the ecosystem can make use of these developments to better serve SMEs. These players will have to embrace data and technologies, forge innovative partnerships, and take calculated risks to build trust and help SMEs manage the transition to new technologies.

The underlying working papers evaluate the effectiveness of trade promotion organizations (TPOs). The first paper “The impact of quality-related business trainings in Latin America” assesses the impact of quality-related business training on firm certification and export status, applying a difference-in-difference regression specification and propensity score matching. Findings indicate that quality-related trainings help firms gain and retain internationally recognized quality certificates. Furthermore, these trainings help firms transition to gain or retain exporter status.

The second paper “What bang for the buck? Export promotion and the extensive margin of trade” analyses how TPOs can allocate their budget to increase the number of exporters, using fixed effects model and an instrumental variable approach. The results indicate that allocating TPO’s budget to new exporters effectively raises the number of exporters. This result is led by budget allocated to small firms, while the number of exporters declines when more budget is allocated to large firms.

Please see the attachment below for more information on the seminar. Registration is not required.