Publication: Are the Benefits of Export Support Durable? Evidence from Tunisia
Loading...
Published
2012-12
ISSN
Date
2013-01-29
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This paper evaluates the effects of the FAMEX export promotion program in Tunisia on the performance of beneficiary firms. While much of the literature assesses only the short-term impact of such programs, the paper considers also the longer-term impact. Propensity-score matching, difference-in-difference, and weighted least squares estimates suggest that beneficiaries initially see faster export growth and greater diversification across destination markets and products. However, three years after the intervention, the growth rates and the export levels of beneficiaries are not significantly different from those of non-beneficiary firms. Exports of beneficiaries do remain more diversified, but the diversification does not translate into lower volatility of exports. The authors also did not find evidence that the program produced spillover benefits for non-beneficiary firms. However, the results on the longer-term impact of export promotion must be interpreted cautiously because the later years of the sample period saw a collapse in world trade, which may not have affected all firms equally.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Cadot, Olivier; Fernandes, Ana M.; Gourdon, Julien; Mattoo, Aaditya. 2012. Are the Benefits of Export Support Durable? Evidence from Tunisia. Policy Research Working Paper; No. 6295. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/12189 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication South Africa’s Fragmented Cities: The Unequal Burden of Labor Market Frictions(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2026-01-08)Using high-resolution administrative, census, and satellite data, this paper shows that South African cities are characterized by spatial mismatches between where people live and where jobs are located, relative to 20 global peers. Areas within 5 kilometers of commercial centers have 9,300 fewer residents per square kilometer than expected, which is 60 percent below the global median. Poor, dense neighborhoods are most affected. In Johannesburg, a 10-percentile increase in distance from the nearest business hub corresponds to a 3.7-percentile drop in asset wealth (a proxy of household wellbeing) and 4.9-percentile drop in employment. In Cape Town, the declines are 4.0 and 3.7 percentiles, respectively. Employment is 87 percent lower in the poorest decile than the richest in Johannesburg and 61 percent lower in Cape Town. These findings suggest that South Africa’s spatial organization of people and economic activity constrains agglomeration and reinforces inequality. This methodology provides a scalable and standardized data-driven framework to analyze spatial accessibility and agglomeration frictions in complex, data-constrained urban systems.Publication The Evolution of Local Participatory Democracy in Nepal(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-05)Nepal is, according to its constitution, among the world’s most decentralized countries, with a long and complex tradition of local-level public participation. This paper traces the evolution of Nepal’s modern participatory institutions, examining the extent to which they are “induced” by external interventions versus being “organically” rooted in indigenous practices. The paper identifies three broad phases: an initial focus on participation in project implementation; a subsequent phase that expanded citizen engagement; and a third phase of citizen empowerment, culminating in the 2015 federal constitution, which granted unprecedented local autonomy. The analysis yields five key findings. First, over the past 50 years, successive reforms have progressively expanded opportunities for citizens to influence local decision-making. Second, these reforms have integrated traditional participatory mechanisms into formal institutions of local government. Third, although central-level initiatives exist, most participatory platforms continue to operate at the local level. Fourth, the federal constitution has created a new landscape of local democracy, embedding autonomy and accountability. Fifth, although they are still valued in many ethnic and territorial communities, traditional participatory practices are gradually disappearing. The paper concludes by offering policy recommendations to help donor agencies and governments strengthen Nepal’s democratic trajectory. It argues that effective interventions should build on Nepal’s deep participatory traditions while recognizing the constitutional reality of far-reaching local autonomy.Publication Institutional Capacity for Policy Implementation: An Analytical Framework(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2026-01-07)State capacity is an important prerequisite for policy implementation, yet at the country level it is difficult to measure, assess, and reform. This paper proposes a focus on institutional capacity: the ability of public institutions to implement the specific policy mandates for which they are responsible. Based on a review of existing literature, the paper defines the different dimensions that compose institutional capacity and groups them into two cross-cutting categories: organizational dimensions (personnel, financial resources, information systems, and management practices) and governance dimensions (transparency, independence, and accountability). The paper proposes measures for organizational and governance dimensions using existing data, shows intra-institutional variation of these measures within countries, and discusses how new data could be collected for better measurement of these concepts. Finally, the paper illustrates how the framework can be used to diagnose the sources of common problems related to weak policy implementation.Publication Closing the Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship: Overcoming Challenges in Law and Practice for Female Entrepreneurs(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2026-01-07)Despite significant strides toward gender equality, women around the world continue to encounter systemic obstacles that hinder their entrepreneurial success. This paper systematically reviews the literature on the barriers female entrepreneurs face and the solutions proposed to overcome these challenges. It discusses institutional factors, financial factors, human capital factors, and social and cultural factors. The literature overview is complemented by a series of stylized facts that illustrate how overcoming some of these existing barriers is correlated with improved women’s entrepreneurship and female labor force participation, drawing on the World Bank’s Women, Business and the Law database as well as the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys. The findings underscore the need for creating an enabling environment where women can thrive as entrepreneurs.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Impact Evaluation of Trade Interventions : Paving the Way(2011-11-01)The focus of trade policy has shifted in recent years from economy-wide reductions in tariffs and trade restrictions toward targeted interventions to facilitate trade and promote exports. Most of these latter interventions are based on the new mantra of "aid-for-trade" rather than on hard evidence on what works and what does not. On the one hand, rigorous impact-evaluation is needed to justify these interventions and to improve their design. On the other hand, rigorous evaluation is feasible because unlike traditional trade policy, these interventions tend to be targeted and so it is possible to construct treatment and control groups. When interventions are not targeted, such as in the case of customs reforms, some techniques, such as randomized control trials, may not be feasible but meaningful evaluation may still be possible. Theis paper discusses examples of impact evaluations using a range of methods (experimental and non-experimental), highlighting the particular issues and caveats arising in a trade context, and the valuable lessons that are already being learned. The authors argue that systematically building impact evaluation into trade projects could lead to better policy design and a more credible case for "aid-for-trade."Publication Where to Spend the Next Million? Applying Impact Evaluation to Trade Assistance(London: Centre for Economic Policy Research and the World Bank, 2011)Trade policy has changed fundamentally since the days of structural adjustment and economy-wide trade reforms. Partly in reaction to the uneven results of trade policy reforms, the focus has shifted to more targeted interventions aimed at reducing trade costs and addressing market failures that inhibit exports. Significant national resources and international assistance are now devoted to trade facilitation and export promotion, and the international development community has galvanized around a new 'aid-for-trade' (AfT) mantra as a means of helping low-income countries integrate into the global economy. The rest of this chapter is organized as follows: in section two the report discusses the changing nature of trade policy. In section three the report reviews the available evidence on the impact of trade assistance. In section four the report considers a detailed menu of trade-related interventions and discusses the challenges to their evaluation. In section five the report addresses the data issues crucial to impact evaluation. Finally, in section six the report look at the future challenges to doing Independent Evaluation (IE) in trade assistance.Publication Evaluating Aid for Trade : A Survey of Recent Studies(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-01)The demand for accountability in aid-for-trade is increasing but monitoring has focused on case studies and impressionistic narratives. The paper reviews recent evidence from a wide range of studies, recognizing that a multiplicity of approaches is needed to learn what works and what does not. The review concludes that there is some support for the emphasis on reducing trade costs through investments in hard infrastructure (like ports and roads) and soft infrastructure (like customs). But failure to implement complementary reform -- especially the introduction of competition in transport services -- may erode the benefits of these investments. Direct support to exporters does seem to lead to diversification across products and destinations, but it is not yet clear that these benefits are durable. In general, it is difficult to rely on cross-country studies to direct aid-for-trade. More rigorous impact evaluation is an underutilized alternative, but situations of clinical interventions in trade are rare and adverse incentives (because of agency problems) and costs (because of the small size of project) are a hurdle in implementation.Publication Are the Benefits of Export Support Durable?(Elsevier, 2015-11)This paper evaluates the effects of the FAMEX export promotion program in Tunisia on the performance of beneficiary firms. While most studies assess only the short-term impact of such programs, we consider also the longer-term impact. Our estimates suggest that the average beneficiary initially saw both higher overall export levels and greater diversification across destinations and products. However, three years after the intervention, beneficiaries' export levels and diversification were no longer significantly different from those of a control group. Furthermore, the effects were heterogeneous across firms: small and large firms saw no positive impact on export levels, and even the positive impact on medium sized firms was temporary. The temporariness of the impact was not due to spillovers to non-beneficiary firms which helped them to catch up, or to greater exposure of beneficiaries to crisis-affected economies. Rather, the impact may be transient because the program did not lead to the enhancements in product quality or sophistication which could have strengthened competitiveness durably. Notwithstanding its transient effect, the relatively low-cost FAMEX still generated two Tunisian Dinars of private profits per Dinar of program expenditure, and the additional corporate tax revenue just covered the public cost of the program.Publication A Second Look at the Pesticides Initiative Program : Evidence from Senegal(2011-04-01)This paper investigates whether the Pesticides Initiative Program has significantly affected the export performance of Senegal' shorticulture industry. The authors apply two main microeconometric techniques, difference-in-differences and matching difference-in-differences, to identify the effect of the Pesticides Initiative Program on exports of fresh fruits and vegetables. They use a unique firm-level dataset containing data on sales, employment, and exports by product and destination markets, as well as firm enrolment year, over 2000-2008. The results suggest that wile the program had no significant effect on exports pooled over all products and destinations, it had a positive effect when considering fresh fruits and vegetables exports to the European Union.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication World Development Report 2005(World Bank, 2004)Firms and entrepreneurs of all types from microenterprises to multinationals play a central role in growth and poverty reduction. Their investment decisions drive job creation, the availability and affordability of goods and services for consumers, and the tax revenues governments can draw on to fund health, education, and other services. Their contribution depends largely on the way governments shape the investment climate in each location through the protection of property rights, regulation and taxation, strategies for providing infrastructure, interventions in finance and labor markets, and broader governance features such as corruption. The World Development Report 2005 argues that improving the investment climates of their societies should be a top priority for governments. Drawing on surveys of nearly 30,000 firms in 53 developing countries, country case studies, and other new research, the Report explores questions such as: What are the key features of a good investment climate, and how do they influence growth and poverty? What can governments do to improve their investment climates, and how can they go about tackling such a broad agenda? What has been learned about good practice in each of the main areas of the investment climate? What role might selective interventions and international arrangements play in improving the investment climate? What can the international community do to help developing countries improve the investment climates of their societies? In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Bank's new program of Investment Climate Surveys, the Bank's Doing Business Project, and World Development Indicators 2004‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Doing Business 2014 Economy Profile : Kenya(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2013-10-29)This economy profile presents the Doing Business indicators for Kenya. In a series of annual reports, Doing Business assesses regulations affecting domestic firms in 189 economies and ranks the economies in 10 areas of business regulation, such as starting a business, resolving insolvency and trading across borders. This year's report data cover regulations measured from June 2012 through May 2013. The report is the 11th edition of the Doing Business series.Publication Stocktaking of Global Forced Displacement Data(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-02)Conflict-induced forced displacement is receiving increased interest within the international community. However, establishing an accurate picture of its scale and dynamics is extremely challenging. Large amounts of data on forced displacement are collected and disseminated each year and used to inform policy and programming by humanitarian and development actors. However, not all of these data are credible or complete, and there are significant gaps in the data required for longer-term development planning. This paper reviews the various sources of data on forced displacement and assesses how these can be improved to enable more effective analysis and assistance by development actors. At an aggregate level, the headline figure of 65 million forcibly displaced persons is an estimate, and the data on internally displaced persons are the least robust. There are also several significant gaps in data collection for those populations that are of concern to development actors, especially returnees, as well the substantial number of people living in displacement-affected host communities. In addition, there is little comprehensive data available on the socioeconomic vulnerabilities and needs of displaced populations, or on the social and economic impacts of displacement on host countries and communities. Significant efforts are needed to enhance the reliability, comparability, quality, and scope of data on forced displacement in general, and address the gaps in the data required for long-term development planning.Publication Mauritius Early Childhood Development : SABER Country Report 2012(Washington, DC, 2012)This report presents an analysis of the early childhood development (ECD) programs and policies which affect young children in Mauritius. It is part of a series of reports prepared by the World Bank using the systems approach for better education results (SABER)-ECD framework and includes analysis of early learning, health, nutrition, and social and child protection policies and interventions in Mauritius, along with some regional and international comparisons. The Government of Mauritius (GoM) runs free public preschools, and gives cash transfers to private schools for every child enrolled. The GoM offers free public healthcare, including essential health and nutrition services for pregnant women and young children. While the GoM has implemented important ECD policies and programs, some aspects of the legal framework and systems to monitor and assure quality can be improved.