Statistical analysis of the internationalisation of Italian small and medium sized enterprises

When the choice of one rm's internationalisation regards the establishment of a sub- sidiary in a foreign country, then internationalization is a very complex process in- volving many variables. Some of them regard the features of the foreign countries in which Italian Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) formerly established sub- sidiaries; others regard the consequences of SMEs internationalisation through their economic performance. Through the joint analysis of two variable sets (about coun- tries and rms) and through the statistical method (the Bayesian hierarchical mixed logit model) we are going to implement, we will be able to describe both the most signi - cant characteristics of the rms that opened subsidiaries abroad and the characteristics of the country where the opening took place. The analysis concerns about 400 rms that started an internationalisation process before 2004.