Participation of fast-growing SMEs in international trade and implications for public policy

This study explores participation of Russian fast-growing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in international trade and delivers the evidence of the effects of public policy support on growth and export activity. We show that small and medium sized enterprises that can be attributed to fast-growing firms, have higher export activity, but higher growth rates for them are dominated by growth of domestic sales. Regarding market orientation of Russian firms, we find that fast-growing SMEs are more oriented towards non-CIS markets (primarily, Asian) in comparison to other exporting SMEs. We explore the effects of sanctions and find that fast-growing firms more often entered new country markets than other SMEs. We show that SMEs and fast-growing firms working on foreign markets more intensively use digital technologies. Fast-growing SMEs demonstrate lower dependence on technology imports and higher interest in developing and introducing technologies. We explore public policy support for SMEs and find that government support measures are poorly targeted at small companies in comparison to large business and contribute little to firms' growth and increase of their export activity.