Effiom Lionel, Ebehung Noel, Uche Emmanuel, O Ovat Ovat, Tochukwu Obiakor Rowland
Department of Economics, University of Calabar, Calabar, Nigeria.
Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Management Sciences, Abia State University, Uturu - Abia State Nigeria.
Heliyon. 2022 Sep 27;8(10):e10769. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e10769. eCollection 2022 Oct.
The theoretical premises of open trade predict that open economies would benefit more from trade than those in autarky. Empirical findings for Nigeria are mixed both for macro-based studies and those devoted to sectoral investigations. In this paper, we re-evaluate the evidence on trade openness's impact on the performance of small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria. Existing studies in this area suffer from a twin restriction; one in scope, the other in methodology. We thus employ a two-pronged analytical framework on time series data spanning 1981 to 2019. First, the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) methodology is used to investigate the short-run and long-run effects of trade openness on SMEs' performance. Second, the Toda-Yamamoto causality test provides additional evidence on the direction of causality among the policy variables. Our findings show that trade openness exerts a positive but insignificant impact on the performance of SMEs. Causality test results indicate that variations in exchange rate, infrastructure, labour force and foreign direct investment influence the performance of SMEs. The paper recommends the creation of enabling environments that guarantee formidable enterprise performance amidst open trade. Specifically, there is need, among other things, for significant improvements in infrastructure levels as well as stability in the exchange rate.
开放贸易的理论前提预测，开放经济体将比自给自足的经济体从贸易中获益更多。尼日利亚的实证研究结果在基于宏观的研究和专门针对部门调查的研究中都喜忧参半。在本文中，我们重新评估了贸易开放度对尼日利亚中小企业（SMEs）绩效影响的证据。该领域现有的研究存在双重限制：一是范围限制，另一是方法限制。因此，我们采用双管齐下的分析框架，对1981年至2019年的时间序列数据进行分析。首先，使用自回归分布滞后（ARDL）方法来研究贸易开放度对中小企业绩效的短期和长期影响。其次，Toda-Yamamoto因果关系检验为政策变量之间的因果关系方向提供了额外的证据。我们的研究结果表明，贸易开放度对中小企业的绩效产生了积极但不显著的影响。因果关系检验结果表明，汇率、基础设施、劳动力和外国直接投资的变化会影响中小企业的绩效。本文建议营造有利环境，以确保在开放贸易中企业表现出色。具体而言，除其他事项外，需要大幅改善基础设施水平并稳定汇率。
