Exports of Spanish manufacturing firms and financial constraints

We investigate the role of financial constraints on firms’ exporting behavior, including firms’ export decision, export intensity, firms starting to export decision, and exports persistence. Our financial constraints variable is a synthetic variable that summarizes information on different dimensions such as total assets, profitability, liquidity, solvency, repaying ability, and (new in this type of analyses) the cost of external financing. Using data on Spanish manufacturing for the period 1992–2014, we find evidence supporting that financial health is relevant to explain small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) exporting decisions and starting to export decisions but not those of large firms. Financial health does not seem to affect large firms’ export intensity and the results of the impact of financial health on SMEs export intensity are not conclusive. Nevertheless, financial health is a determinant of export persistence of large firms and SMEs.