This paper scrutinizes the interlinkages between exporting, sales growth volatility, and survival probabilities for Pakistani manufacturing firms. It also studies whether variations in firms’ domestic sales induce them to start exporting and whether entry in foreign export markets helps reduce firms’ bankruptcy chances. The results indicate that exporting helps firms in lessening sales growth volatility and enhances the likelihoods of firms’ survival. The results also suggest that firms with higher sales growth volatility are more expected to be bankrupt. Yet, we show that they can reduce their chance of bankruptcy by starting exports. We also investigate whether these impacts are different between firms of different sizes. We find that compared to large-sized firms, both small- and medium-sized firms are more expected to start exporting to lessen domestic sales volatility. Finally, we observe that the volatility-lowering effects of exporting are higher for small-sized firms, whereas, the solvency-deterring effects of sales volatility are higher for large-sized firms.

本文仔细研究了巴基斯坦制造企业的出口，销售增长波动性和生存概率之间的相互关系。它还研究了公司国内销售的变化是否促使他们开始出口，以及进入国外出口市场是否有助于减少公司的破产机会。结果表明，出口有助于企业减少销售增长的波动性，并提高企业生存的可能性。结果还表明，销售增长波动性较高的公司更容易破产。但是，我们表明，他们可以通过开始出口来减少破产的机会。我们还研究了不同规模的公司之间的这些影响是否不同。我们发现，与大型公司相比，预计中小型企业都将开始出口，以减少国内销售的波动。最后，我们观察到出口对小型企业的降低波动率的影响较大，而对大型企业而言，销售波动性对偿付能力的抑制作用较高。