Heterogeneity and Number of Export Destinations of Italian Firms: A Hurdle Negative Binomial Regression Approach

This article addresses on an aspect of firms internationalization so far little explored, the choice of the number of export destinations and a proxy of the complexity of the export activity. As the outcome variable is a count with an excess of zeros, we use a hurdle regression model for count data that also allow disentangling the aspect of heterogeneity related to the decision to export from those measuring the number of markets served. Some differences arise by the comparison between the estimates regarding the propensity to export model and those of the model describing the number of export destinations. Regarding the propensity to export, the estimated models support the familiar evidences already presented in literature: exporters are larger, more productive, more innovative and invest more. With reference to the number of export destinations, it seems that not only the larger the number of markets served the more productive, large and willing to invest is the firm but also firms engaged in multiple markets seem to be older, financially stable, and willing to support organizational and managerial innovations.