The Venezuelan Enterprise: Current Situation, Challenges and Opportunities
Date issued
Mar 2021
Subject
Investment;
Labor Productivity;
Business Development;
Business Climate;
Firm Performance;
Innovative Firm;
Skilled Labor;
Exporting Firm;
Business Productivity
JEL code
D72 - Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior;
L25 - Firm Performance: Size, Diversification, and Scope;
D22 - Firm Behavior: Empirical Analysis;
D24 - Production • Cost • Capital • Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity • Capacity;
O25 - Industrial Policy;
L60 - Industry Studies: Manufacturing: General;
M11 - Production Management;
D25 - Intertemporal Firm Choice: Investment, Capacity, and Financing;
K22 - Business and Securities Law;
L53 - Enterprise Policy;
M50 - Personnel Economics: General
Country
Venezuela
Category
Monographs
Using Enterprise Survey data, this study describes the characteristics of current Venezuelan firms the survivors of one of the deepest economic contractions of modern historyacross different dimensions, such as access to infrastructure services, firms investment and financing, labor and skills, foreign trade, the legal environment, and firms innovation and performance. The study identifies the main challenges faced by the surviving firms (notably: macroeconomic and political instability, unreliability of basic services, lack of credit, and migration), while identifying some of the opportunities for these firms to exploit if a comprehensive recovery strategy for the country were to be implemented. In this sense, I find that the representative Venezuelan survivor firm has managed to internationalize through several channels (foreign ownership, exports, and international quality certifications), as well as to match skills with current business and market demands and keep innovating. The study also briefly analyzes some of the traditional determinants of (labor) productivity at the firm level, bringing the most interesting aspects to the fore so they can be explored further in more topic-focused research.
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