| Popis: |
This paper explores the relationship between capacity utilisation and international market competition using firm-level data from Indonesia, Philippines, and Vietnam, looking for the possibility of efficient firms self-selecting rather than learning-by-exporting to join foreign markets. Capacity utilization has emerged as a rationale for these short-lived productivity improvements. The impact of international market competition on capacity utilisation follows a curvilinear relationship with a decreasing marginal point as a restriction for further expansion, according to both linear and quadratic models estimated on an unbalanced variance of exporting and non-exporting firms. The higher capacity utilisation rate in the non-exporting group not only reflects a strong domestic business orientation of firms in general, but also suggests that exporter SMEs in these countries have selected the learning-by-exporting entry mode. The influence of firm and industry physiognomies on a firm's capacity utilisation is further explored in the paper, which finds that wage productivity, competition, firm size, and legal structure all have linearly positive and capacity-based effects. The findings consistently emphasise the importance of capacities, competitiveness, and institutional performance in promoting SMEs' development. |
