Firms were more likely to enter Angola’s market after the civil war if they employed managers with prior, Angola-specific export experience – highlighting the critical role of managerial human capital in overcoming fixed entry costs in post-conflict economies.
Editor's note: The authors have made slides available to accompany this research here.
The Angolan economy following the civil war
In 2002, Angola’s civil war ended after almost three decades of conflict. The ceasefire created immediate opportunities for trade. For Portuguese firms, long connected to Angola through language and historical ties, this marked a major change. Exports to Angola increased rapidly, yet only some firms entered the market.
Post-conflict economies tend to combine strong demand with significant barriers. Infrastructure is damaged, institutions are weak, and reliable information about potential buyers or suppliers is scarce (Hill et al. 2025). Even when tariffs are low, exporters must identify trustworthy partners, manage logistics in uncertain conditions, and navigate customs procedures. These challenges raise the costs of entry and discourage many firms from taking the first step. Angola’s abrupt transition from war to peace thus provides a valuable setting to study how firms decide whether to enter a fragile but newly open market.
The value of managers’ export experience
To investigate this, we (Mion, Opromolla, and Sforza 2025) used linked data on Portuguese firms and their employees combined with customs records covering all export transactions between 1995 and 2005. This made it possible to see which firms employed managers who had previously worked in companies exporting to Angola and compare their behaviour before and after the war ended.
Our evidence shows that firms employing at least one manager with prior Angola-specific export experience were around twice as likely to begin exporting to Angola after 2002. Before the ceasefire, such managers had no measurable effect, as the conflict made entry nearly impossible for all firms. Their value became apparent only when the market reopened.
The effect was concentrated on the decision to enter. Once firms began exporting, those with experienced managers did not ship larger volumes than other entrants. This indicates that managerial knowledge helped firms overcome the fixed costs of establishing a presence but did not alter the intensity of trade once entry had occurred.
Not all forms of experience mattered equally. Managers who had exported to other Portuguese-speaking countries, or other conflict-affected destinations, did not have the same effect. The knowledge that proved useful was highly specific to Angola and, in some cases, tied to particular products.
The economic implications of past export experience to Angola were remarkable. For firms that entered Angola in 2002, exports to the country represented more than 7% of their total exports within four years. These flows were large enough to certainly have an impact on firms’ growth and – from Angola’s perspective – contributed to reconstruction and reintegration into global trade.
Managerial experience and entering new markets
The Angolan case illustrates how managerial experience can shape firms’ ability to respond when new markets become accessible. Our results show that firms with managers who had prior Angola-specific export experience were more likely to enter after peace was established. The effect was concentrated on the extensive margin: experienced managers made it more likely that a firm would start exporting, but they did not increase the volume of exports once entry had occurred.
Stocking up managerial experience is an effective strategy for small firms that aim to grow and compete on the global market. Our evidence shows that employing a manager with previous export experience in Angola has an effect on the likelihood of entering the market equivalent to a 1.2 standard deviation increase in firm size.
Policy implications for firms post-conflict
The experience of Portuguese firms after Angola’s civil war provides evidence that opportunities created by sudden political changes are not accessible to all firms in the same way. Firms employing managers with prior Angola-specific export experience were more likely to enter the market once it reopened. Other types of export experience did not yield the same advantage.
These results point to the role of managerial human capital in reducing the fixed costs of entry into fragile or newly opened markets. While broader policy measures such as infrastructure investment and trade facilitation remain important, our evidence from Angola highlights how the prior experience of individual managers can shape firm-level responses to sudden changes in market access.
References
Hill, S, J Khadan, and P Selcuk (2025), “More than one billion people reside in economies mired in fragility and conflict,” VoxDev.
Mion, G, L D Opromolla, and A Sforza (2025), “The value of managers’ export experience: Lessons from the Angolan civil war,” Review of Economics and Statistics 107(2): 580–587.