Barriers to internationalisation: firm–level evidence from South Africa

Abstract

The internal resource barriers that firms experience influence their capability to export. This, in turn, influences the export performance of the country and the extent to which exports contribute to economic growth. The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of resource barriers, more specifically firm size, productivity, firm-specific capital and labour market constraints, on South African firms` decision to internationalise. From the overall results of the model, it is clear that the unobserved factors that make export more likely tend to be associated with lower levels of exports. The main findings are that firm size and productivity matter for exports.Furthermore, barriers to doing business, such as electricity supply and transportation and the use of imported inputs influence exporting firms` supply-side capabilities