IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/10256.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Capacity Building as a Route to Export Market Expansion : A Six-Country Experiment in theWestern Balkans∗

Author

Listed:
  • Cusolito,Ana Paula
  • Darova,Ornella
  • Mckenzie,David J.

Abstract

The limited market size of many small emerging economies is a key constraint to the growth ofinnovative small and medium enterprises. Exporting offers a potential solution, but firms may struggle to locate andappeal to foreign buyers. A six-country randomized experiment was conducted with 225 firms in the WesternBalkans to test the effectiveness of 30 hours of live group-based training and 5 hours of one-on-one remoteconsulting in overcoming these constraints. Treated firms used techniques such as search engine optimization andimproved Facebook content to increase their digital presence and better reach foreign customers. A year later, positiveand significant impacts are found on the number of customers, and a significant intensive margin increase inexport sales. Qualitative interviews suggest this improvement came from a combination of sector-specificadvice on market expansion, and through an encouragement effect which gave entrepreneurs the confidence to try newsales strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Cusolito,Ana Paula & Darova,Ornella & Mckenzie,David J., 2022. "Capacity Building as a Route to Export Market Expansion : A Six-Country Experiment in theWestern Balkans∗," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10256, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10256
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099415512072241245/pdf/IDU0c2e6b3a90ae8704ffc0a48700caa1b8961cc.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:10256. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.