Vietnam’s exports in the period of 2012-2020: Combining exploratory factor analysis method in regression models for panel data

Abstract

2020 was a year when international trade activities are not favourable. However, Vietnam still ranked in the group of countries with the highest growth in the world. And prominent in that economic picture is Vietnam’s export activities. Therefore, it is really urgent to find suitable solutions to help export continuously maintain its role as the key engine of growth in the context of increasingly complex disease developments. To assess the impact of the epidemic and some macro factors on export activities, this study used regression models for panel data with latent variables to measure main factors: supply, demand, motivation, and barriers to Vietnam’s export activities in the period 2012-2020 through exploratory factor analysis method. The obtained results have shown the effectiveness of combining the factor analysis method in estimating regression models by the ordinary least square (OLS) method, especially in the context of big data, along with the rapid increase in the dimension of the observed variables.