Outward Foreign Direct Investment, Exporting and Firm-Level Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

We consider the relationship between how a firm serves foreign markets and performance, using survey data on manufacturing and services firms for African countries. Results for manufacturing industries indicate a clear productivity ordering with firms undertaking outward Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) performing best, followed by exporters and domestically oriented firms. Results for services firms are more nuanced, indicating that while exporters and firms undertaking outward FDI are more productive than domestically oriented firms, there is no significant difference in productivity between these two types of firms (some evidence suggests that the productivity of exporters is larger than that for firms undertaking outward FDI).