From technical and cost efficiency to exporting: firm level data from Slovenia

The paper investigates the influence of technical and allocative efficiency on export performance of Slovenian individual firms. The main contribution of the paper to the literature is the test on whether technical and allocative efficiencies, measured by data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier function (SFA), significantly influence the export orientation of individual firms. Our evidence suggests that firms which are more efficient than their competitors in industry are more export oriented and that technical efficiency is more significant for firms’ export orientation than allocative efficiency. The evidence also suggests that along efficiency export activity of individual firms is significantly influenced by size, capital intensity, profitability, wages and export orientation of the firms a year prior to investigation.