THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EXPORT STATUS AND PRODUCTIVITY IN SERVICES: A FIRM‐LEVEL ANALYSIS FOR SPAIN

This paper analyses the relationship between export status and productivity in a major service exporter, Spain, during 2001–07. I find that exporters in the services sector are 45 percent more productive than non‐exporters. This productivity premium is larger for firms that supply non‐internet‐related services than for firms that supply internet‐related services. The results show that exporters were more productive than non‐exporters before beginning to export, and also that exporting increases productivity growth; however, this positive shock vanishes quickly.     

Second thoughts on the exporter productivity premium

Abstract Contrary to the prevailing interpretation, this paper shows that the central models of trade with heterogeneous firms ( Melitz 2003 ; Bernard et al. 2003 ) exhibit ambiguous predictions for the exporter productivity premium. This prospect arises because of differences between theoretical and empirical representations of firm productivity. Instead of marginal productivity, we examine in both models the theoretical equivalent of empirically observable productivity (value‐added per employee). Given the presence of fixed export costs or heterogeneous mark‐ups and trade costs, the observable productivity of exporters in proximity to the export‐indifferent firm turns out to be lower than that of non‐exporters; that is, the productivity distributions overlap. The paper reviews empirical literature that reports non‐positive exporter productivity premia in firm‐level data and discusses implications for empirical research on exporter performance, including learning and the role of non‐parametric regressions (stochastic dominance, quantile regressions), fixed costs, and productivity distributions.     

The Exporter Wage Premium Reconsidered—Destinations,Distances and Linked Employer–Employee Data

This study uses detailed, reliable and up‐to‐date linked employer–employee data that take account of both the demand and the supply side of the labor market to challenge the conventional wisdom of a universal exporter wage premium. It investigates whether for German establishments an exporter wage premium can be found irrespective of export destination and the distance between export origin and destination. As expected, it finds that exporters generally pay higher wages than non‐exporters, but it also shows that only exporting to certain countries is associated with a wage premium. Moreover, such a premium exists only for establishments that ship goods over a relatively long distance.     

企业出口与生产率的关系——基于中国工业企业数据的实证研究

采用1998—2007年中国工业企业数据,对出口与生产率的关系进行了再探讨,具体研究了出口企业是否具有更高的生产率、企业在做出口决策的过程中是否存在自我选择机制以及出口行为本身是否能促进企业生产率的增长。研究结果显示:当用TFP衡量生产率时,企业出口决策中存在自我选择机制,因此出口企业的生产率相对较高——这与异质企业贸易模型的预期结果一致;当用劳动生产率(人均附加值)衡量企业生产率时,则"生产率悖论"存在,即出口者的生产率反而较低;当企业刚进入出口市场时,其生产率会经历短期的快速增长,但从长期来看,出口对企业生产率增长的作用在整体上是负向的。     

Markups of Exporters and Importers: Evidence from Hungary

In this paper, we study the relationship between different proxies of firm‐level markups and trade status, using balance sheet information linked to detailed trade data from Hungary between 1995 and 2003. We find that importing is strongly positively correlated with markup measures, both across and within firms. We argue that this correlation can reflect three channels: self‐selection, higher physical productivity resulting from access to a larger variety of inputs, and quality upgrading based on high‐quality imported intermediate inputs. We present evidence for the relevance of the third channel by showing that importers’ markup premium is higher when inputs arrive from developed countries, and that importing is correlated with higher‐quality (price‐adjusted revenue) exports. We find no robust evidence for exporter premium when controlling for importing. We argue that the non‐existent exporter premium might result from the stronger competition in export markets relative to domestic markets.     

Intra‐firm trade,exporting, importing,and firm performance

Abstract This paper examines firm heterogeneity in terms of size, wages, capital intensity, and productivity between domestic and foreign‐owned firms that engage in intra‐firm trade, firms that export and import, firms that import only, and firms that export only. As previously documented, heterogeneity between different groups of trading firms is substantial. Taking into account intra‐firm trade in addition to exporting and importing yields new insights into the productivity advantage previously established for exporting firms. The results presented here show that this premium accrues only to exporters that also import and to exporters that also engage in intra‐firm trade, but not to firms that export only. Using simultaneous quantile regressions, the paper illustrates that heterogeneity within different groups of trading firm is equally large. Some of this within‐group heterogeneity can be attributed to differences in trading partners.     

International Trade and Collective Bargaining Outcomes: Evidence from German Employer–Employee Data

In theoretical trade models with variable mark‐ups and collective wage bargaining, exposure to international markets might reduce the exporter wage premium. We test this prediction using linked German employer–employee data covering the years 1996–2007. To separate the rent‐sharing mechanism from assortative matching, we exploit individual worker information to construct profitability measures that are free of skill composition. Our results show that rent‐sharing is less pronounced in more export‐intensive firms or in more open industries. The exporter wage premium is highest for low‐productivity firms. In line with theory, these findings are unique to the subsample of plants covered by collective bargaining.     

Trade,trust and the rule of law

Well-functioning institutions, both formal (i.e. rule of law) and informal (i.e. trust), facilitate economic exchange. To investigate the nature of the relationship between formal and informal institutions, we analyze bilateral trade patterns in a sample of 16 European countries between 1996–2009. Our results show that trust and rule of law are substitutes, as the positive effect of trust on trade is conditional on the quality of the rule of law. When the rule of law of the importing country increases relative to that of the exporter, the effect of trust on trade decreases. The decline in the effect of trust on trade is less for importers than for exporters, a result that can be attributed to the risk of non-payment that exporters run.     

Importing,Exporting, and Innovation in Developing Countries

This study shows the persistent differences in evolution of firms when they are grouped according to their trade orientation as: two‐way traders (both importing and exporting), “exporters‐only”, “importers‐only”, and nontraders. Extending the existing models of firm evolution into an open economy setup by incorporating the importing decision, a simple model is presented and it is empirically shown that: (i) globally engaged firms are larger, more productive, and grow faster than nontraders; (ii) two‐way traders are the fastest growing and most innovative group who are followed by exporter‐only firms; and (iii) estimating the export premium without controlling for import status is likely to overestimate the actual value by capturing the import premium. Robustness of the results is shown by providing evidence from the panel data constructed from the original dataset and controlling for variables that are likely to affect firm evolution.     

Austrian exporters: unique or alike? New insights and missing puzzle pieces

In this paper we provide detailed evidence on the performance of exporters compared to non-exporters in Austrian manufacturing industries based on firm-level data. The centrepiece of the study is the issue of the export premium, i.e. the size and productivity advantages of exporting firms compared to their purely domestic peers. We present evidence for the existence of sales, labour productivity and wage premia. These results are largely in line with the results found for other European countries. Furthermore we document the existence of large differences in these premia across industries and provide explanations for this finding. Our results are robust with regards to including additional firm control variables such as employment and R&D-related variables though the magnitudes of the export premia become much smaller. We also propose a new interpretation of the export premium estimation with firm fixed effects which we interpret as a result on export switchers. Finally, we employ a probit model to document the importance of sunk export costs for the decision to export.     

Exchange rate pass-through in the U.S. market: A cross-country and cross-product investigation

Foreign exporters in general and Japanese exporters in particular have been observed to price to market in the U.S. Are there significant differences in the pricing behavior among exporters from different countries? Is the Japanese export pricing behavior unique? This paper addresses these questions and finds that while there is obvious variation in exchange rate pass-through among products, which relates significantly to the degree of product differentiation, no single exporter to the United States is unique in their pricing behavior.     

Exports and firm survival: do trade regime and productivity matter?

This article aims to investigate the role of trade regime and productivity in the link between exporting and firm survival. We use firm-level data from China to examine whether exporters engaged in different trade regimes and with different levels of productivity react differently with regard to survival probability. We find that exporters engaged in all types of trade regimes have higher survival probabilities in comparison with nonexporters; however, the survival probability of exporters engaged in processing trade is less positively affected by productivity.     

Planting Disinformation through Voluntary Export Restraints

Voluntary export restraints typically are determined in bilateral negotiations between an importing country and a major exporting country, and have the appearance of forcibly limiting exports from the latter while leaving minor exporters unrestrained. However, during the negotiation process the major exporter can acquire insight into the nature of the importing country government. This private information may actually motivate the major exporter to restrain exports voluntarily.     

Trade adjustment policies and income distribution in three archetype developing economies

This paper explores quantitatively the macroeconomic and distributional impacts on non-oil producing, semi-industrial developing countries of external shocks originating in the world economy —in particular, rising costs of imports and shrinking export markets. The empirical analysis is done with a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. The effects of the same external shock are modelled for three different archetype economies: a primary exporter, a manufacturing exporter, and a closed economy. Three different policy-adjustment regimes are considered: devaluation, premium rationing of imports (import licenses), and premium rationing in an environment with a fixed real wage for unskilled labor. By making simple assumptions about the way socioeconomic groups operate to influence decision-making, the paper also examines how the struggle between the gainers and losers is likely to affect the policy regime to be chosen.     

Productivity Performance of Export Market Entry and Exit: Evidence from Indian Firms

This paper contributes to the literature on exporting and firm productivity, focusing on export entry (efficiency), learning (post‐entry growth) and exit (inefficiency) by Indian firms. Drawing on 7000 firms during 1989–2009, our main objective is to examine the effect of exporting on firm productivity, correcting for selection bias using propensity‐score matching, which allows a “like‐for‐like” comparison between new exporters and nonexporters. Robust to different matching estimators, we find evidence of learning‐by‐exporting that new exporters acquire rapid productivity growth after entry, relative to nonexporters. We also find that (1) exporters are more productive than nonexporters; (2) productive firms tend to self‐select in entering the exporting market, and (3) least productive exporters are found to exit the export market as they experience adverse productivity effect prior to the year of exit. Our robust result on learning‐by‐exporting suggests that entering export market does appear to be a channel explaining the Indian recent growth miracle.     

Globalization,recruitments, and job mobility

Previous research indicates that firms pay a premium to poach workers from exporting firms if experience working for an internationally engaged firm reduces trade costs. Because international experience is less valuable to non-exporters, we would expect to see differences in recruitments between firms that are internationally engaged and those that serve only the domestic market. Moreover, increased openness might lead to higher job-to-job mobility if more globalization raises both the share of exporters and the number of workers with skills that make them attractive for other exporters. Using linked Swedish employer–employee data for the period 1997 to 2013, we find systematic differences between the way exporters and non-exporters recruit workers: exporters have a relatively high share of recruitments from other exporters as hypothesized. We also find some suggestive evidence that increased openness correlates positively with upward mobility for occupations that play a major role in international commerce, such as professionals and managers.     

Learning‐by‐Exporting Revisited: The Role of Intensity and Persistence*

Two non‐mutually exclusive hypotheses can explain the empirically established export premium: self‐selection of more productive firms into export markets and learning‐by‐exporting. This paper focuses on how the temporal dimension of firms' exporting activities and the intensity of exports influence the scope of learning effects. Using a panel of Swedish firms and dynamic generalized method of moments estimation, we find a learning effect among persistent exporters with high export intensity, but not among temporary exporters or persistent exporters with low export intensity. For small firms, exports boost productivity among persistent exporters with both high and low export intensity, but the effect is stronger for persistent export‐intensive small firms.     

Value-added exports and the skill premium: Evidence from China’s international and regional production networks

The present study examines the impact of value-added exports on the skill premium in a large developing country. We distinguish two margins of value-added trade: direct exporting measures the economic activities of de jure exporters, while indirect exporting reflects the induced demand for suppliers for exporters. We integrate China’1s internal and external production networks and draw empirical evidence from both population and economic censuses. Our findings show that aggregate value-added export intensity is associated with a higher skill premium, but it encompasses two contrasting effects: the direct exporting channel increases the skill premium, whereas the indirect channel decreases it. The latter channel has been neglected in existing published studies, which can lead to an overestimation of the positive relationship between exports and inequality in the South. We discuss the possible mechanisms and important implications.     

Productivity and offshoring innovative activities

Recent studies suggest that firms may gain from global sourcing of innovative activities. Yet, only a small number of firms offshore their R&D, design, and engineering tasks. To explain this selection pattern, this paper examines the heterogeneity in total factor productivity among a large group of European firms. The results suggest that those firms that offshore their innovative activities tend to be more productive than domestic firms, exporters, and other multinational corporations. This finding implies that firms with superior productivity are more likely to exploit the global task distribution in innovative activities, which may provide an explanation for why such low participation is observed in the data.     

Export Destination,Product Quality and Wages in a Middle‐Income Country. The Case of South Africa

A robust finding in the firm‐level literature is that exporting firms pay higher wages. Using South African data this paper investigates the relationship between export destination and wages at a worker level. South Africa, a middle‐income country, has two distinct main export markets—a regional market where per capita incomes are lower than at home, and an international market with higher per capita incomes. Our estimates show that workers in firms that export to the region earn less than those that produce for the domestic market. Those in firms that export outside the region earn more than either domestic producers or region‐only exporters. Much of this difference in wages can be explained by the premium the different types of exporters pay for skills. These results support previous studies which suggest that export destination is related to product quality which in turn is related to worker quality and therefore wages.