数字连通性与企业参与国外市场：基于出口商的双边分析
Digital connectivity and firm participation in foreign markets: An exporter-based bilateral analysis
Journal of Development Economics · 2025 · [{"name": "Michele Imbruno", "affiliation": ["Economic Policy Institute"]}, {"name": "Joël Cariolle", "affiliation": ["Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique", "Institut de Recherche pour le Développement", "Centre d'Études et de Recherches sur le Développement International"]}, {"name": "Jaime de Mélo", "affiliation": ["Foundation for laboratory medicine"]}]
中文摘要
本文研究海底通信电缆（SMC）部署所形成的双边数字连通性如何影响企业参与出口市场。基于异质性企业模型，并使用1997—2014年期间48个国家双边贸易数据构成的非平衡面板，我们发现两国之间的SMC连接与发达国家双边出口商数量的增加相关，同时与发展中国家双边出口商数量的减少相关。双边连通性与企业参与出口市场之间的这种负相关关系，在数字吸收能力较低的最贫穷发展中地区——中东和北非以及撒哈拉以南非洲——似乎更强。因此，由SMC部署推动的世界连通性增长，对企业出口决策产生了异质性影响：推动更多来自高收入国家的企业进入出口市场，同时导致一些来自低收入国家的在位出口商退出出口市场。
Abstract
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.