The use of public support on internationalization activities: evidence from a Heckman selection model

摘要

An interesting debate is currently taking place among scholars anddecision makers about the evaluation of public support targeted to internationalizationactivities. In order to understand their efficiency,we need first to know more about the determinants of their use.We developed an econometric model based on the Heckmam method,a two-step statistical approach that corrects for selection bias resultingfrom non-randomly selected sample of firms' awarenesses. The modelis tested on a recent survey that includes 441 firms that used at leastone of the 11 internationalization support measures launched in Portugalsince 1994.The empirical results overall show that firm competencies and the requirementsof internationalization positively affect the awareness ofpublic support. Analysing the effects on use, we found evidence that firm competencies are negatively related with use, unlike the the requirementsof internationalization, which are positively related withthe use of public support.