FIFTY YEARS OF LITERATURE ON EXPORT ASSISTANCE PROGRAMMES: A BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS

Abstract

Literature on export assistance programmes (EAPs) was first published over half a century ago and has focused on many topics, such as the impact of EAPs on firms’ performance, their usefulness and use, among others. The numerous papers published in this area justify the present bibliometric analysis aimed at examining the trends in EAP literature from 1966 until 2017. An analysis of 367 studies published in this period allowed us to conclude that most of the works are empirical, adopt the perspective of the provider (the content of the specific programmes offered by public entities), and focus on macroeconomic evaluations (the impact of EAPs on countries’ exports). The bulk of studies have analysed advanced economies, such as the USA or UK. The publications are scattered among a large number of journals, and the influence of this literature is relatively small (few publications have a significant number of citations).