Home-country export regulations, credit markets, and corruption: implications for different types of internationalization

Direct exporting activities and outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) are two types of internationalization that differ in firms’ opportunities, resources and risks. We study home-country institutional factors for internationalization and empirically investigate the direct and joint effects of export regulations, credit markets and corruption in explaining exporting and OFDI from a country. Using country-level data from 96 developed and developing countries between 2000 and 2018, we test a series of hypotheses and examine nonlinearity in the relationships. The results of the study suggest that export regulations partially affect exporting but do not affect OFDI. Access to financial resources can be critical in parts for both exports and OFDI. The findings also show that corruption can have different implications for exports and OFDI. The interactions of corruption with export regulations and credit markets reveal some unexpected and counter-intuitive results, highlighting the importance of distinguishing between the direct and indirect (joint) effects of business environment factors and corruption on exports and OFDI. The results of the study contain important information for policymakers.