Identification of differences in the productive profile of the exporting and non-exporting companies of the Atlantic-Colombia department: an application of the discriminating analysis

Abstract

In the Atlántico Department of Colombia, more than 4000 companies from different industrial sectors are established. However, less than 20% of them are exporting their products, although this department is located in a privileged geographic location that allows easy access to river, sea and air ports. The main objective of this research was to characterize the productive profile of the exporting and nonexporting companies of the Department of the Atlantic to identify their main differences. For this, multivariate statistical analysis was used, specifically the discriminant analysis that allows to find classification functions for each type of company and a discriminant function that summarizes the main differences of the 4130 Cabarcas Reyes Juan Carlos et al.two populations, based on a series of previously identified variables. As a result of the research, the relevant variables were obtained to compare the two types of companies, an instrument for measuring these variables, the classification functions and the discriminant function. As a central conclusion, it was shown that there are differences in the productive profiles of the exporting and non-exporting companies of the Atlántico Department of Colombia.