The impact of quality certifications on firms' performance : a random forest diff-in-diff approach
Date
2020-11
Authors
Mena, Andrés Sebastián
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Figal-Garone, Lucas
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universidad de San Andrés. Departamento de Economía
Abstract
This study evaluates the impact of internationally recognized quality certification
(QC) adoption on firms’ performance. Using a panel dataset of 4,668 firms from
Latin America and the Caribbean we follow a two-stage identification strategy: (i)
We estimate firms’ probability of QC adoption using Random Forest algorithm, and
(ii) we use the estimated probabilities for applying a weighted Diff-in-Diff approach.
Our findings show that acquiring a QC has a positive effect on firm export behavior.
Interestingly, we find that this effect is driven by an increase in both the intensive and
extensive margin of indirect exports. QC also helps to ease constraints in access to
finance but no effect was found on Local Sales and various measures of firm
productivity. However, our analysis reveals that positive impacts of QC on firms’
performance are contingent on firm size: it only benefits small enterprises. This
evidence may be consistent with the idea that QC adoption in developing countries
contributes mainly to the growth of small enterprises in supply chains by reducing
information asymmetries.
Description
Fil: Mena, Andrés Sebastián. Universidad de San Andrés. Departamento de Economía; Argentina.
Keywords
Citation
Mena, A. S. (2020). The impact of quality certifications on firms' performance : a random forest diff-in-diff approach. [Tesis de maestría, Universidad de San Andrés. Departamento de Economía]. Repositorio Digital San Andrés. http://hdl.handle.net/10908/18500