Predicting Exporters with Machine Learning

Francesca Micocci and Armando Rungi

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: In this contribution, we exploit machine learning techniques to evaluate whether and how close firms are to becoming successful exporters. First, we train and test various algorithms using financial information on both exporters and non-exporters in France in 2010-2018. Thus, we show that we are able to predict the distance of non-exporters from export status. In particular, we find that a Bayesian Additive Regression Tree with Missingness In Attributes (BART-MIA) performs better than other techniques with an accuracy of up to 0.90. Predictions are robust to changes in definitions of exporters and in the presence of discontinuous exporting activity. Eventually, we discuss how our exporting scores can be helpful for trade promotion, trade credit, and assessing aggregate trade potential. For example, back-of-the-envelope estimates show that a representative firm with just below-average exporting scores needs up to 44% more cash resources and up to 2.5 times more capital to get to foreign markets.

Date: 2021-07, Revised 2022-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big, nep-cmp and nep-int
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Published in World Trade Review , Volume 22 , Issue 5 , December 2023 , pp. 584 - 607

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http://arxiv.org/pdf/2107.02512 Latest version (application/pdf)

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Working Paper: Predicting Exporters with Machine Learning (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:arx:papers:2107.02512

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