Just a Piece of Paper? Domestic Standards Certification and Small Firm Growth in Viet Nam
利用越南制造业小微企业调查数据，研究了企业获取国内标准认证的动因，并发现认证对企业增长有正向信号作用，对女性经营的企业效果更强。
Using two waves (2013, 2015) of the Micro, Small, and Medium sized Enterprises (MSMEs) survey of Vietnamese manufacturing firms, this paper first explores what drives firms’ decision to have a domestic standards certificate, taking into account a rich number of factors related to the cost and expected benefits of certification as well as institutional factors. It further explores the presence of a positive and significant effect of domestic certificates on firm growth, testing whether these serve as signalling devices for desirable attributes under information asymmetry. Evidence is indeed found for a signalling effect of domestic standards certification, being stronger for female-run businesses. Results hold even when controlling for international certifications.