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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between export performance and firm size.Design/methodology/approachAnalysing a large sample of firms in the Vietnamese manufacturing sector, the authors employ a quantile regression approach to asses whether or not the relationship between exporting and firm size is dependent upon the extent of exporting that firms already undertake.FindingsThe authors find that increased firm size leads to higher export volumes. However, in sharp contrast to literature that largely focuses on considering a linear relationship between these two variables, the authors further find that the positive relationship becomes weaker as the extent of exporting activity increases.Originality/valueIn contrast to the earlier literature, a key novelty of the approach is that the authors obtain new insights in terms of establishing a nonlinear relationship between firm size and export performance in the case of Vietnamese manufacturing.

It is well known that physical and mental health are closely related, with growing evidence for biological and behavioural pathways. Mostly the research has focussed on mental health as the key driver of this inter-connection; the extent physical health shapes mental health has received less attention. We aim to derive robust estimates of the unique role physical health may play in shaping mental health outcomes. To do so we use a novel approach, incorporating longitudinal and instrumental variable methods which can address the reciprocal relationship between physical and mental health, and the endogeneity of physical health, before estimating the physical to mental health pathway. A sample of 209,442 observations (or 24,966 unique individuals) aged 15 and over spanning 18 years (2002–2019) was extracted from the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australian Survey (HILDA). We find that physical activity and health shocks erode mental health via their impact on physical health with a one point improvement (or worsening) in physical health scores (0–100) resulting in a rise (or decline) of 0.43 points (or 43%) in mental health score.

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