The Performance of Trading Firms in the Services Sectors – Comparable Evidence from Four EU Countries

We examine trade complexity and the implications of adding additional dimensions of trade for firm performance among services producers. We use unique firm‐level data to compare these patterns across four EU countries. Overall, services firms are relatively less engaged in trade than manufacturing firms; they mostly trade goods and are more likely to import than to export. Trade in services is quite rare; services are more likely to be traded by firms already trading goods. Trading firms in the services sectors are significantly larger, more productive and pay higher wages than non‐traders. Two‐way traders outperform one‐way traders. Changes in trading status by either adding another dimension of trade (imports, exports) or another type of product (goods, services) are infrequent and are associated with significant preswitching premia. In contrast, learning effects from switching trading status are uncommon. This points to significant fixed cost of being engaged in trade and confirms some previous findings that trading services firms have similar traits as their manufacturing counterparts. Apart from greater trade participation in smaller countries, we do not observe systematic differences in terms of trade or switching premia between the four countries that might be attributable to differences in country characteristics.     

异质企业贸易模型的理论进展

21世纪初国际贸易领域的研究重点逐渐由对产业的关注转向对国际贸易中异质企业的关注。本文介绍了异质企业贸易模型的建立、异质企业贸易模型的拓展,围绕企业生产率异质性、企业出口行为和FDI行为选择、企业一体化和外包组织形式选择等核心问题,对现有国际研究成果进行了综述,并探讨了异质企业贸易模型的发展方向。     

Firm heterogeneity in services trade: Micro-level evidence from eight OECD countries

This paper shows that smaller and less productive firms, as well as first-time exporters, are overproportionally affected by services trade barriers using micro-data from Belgium, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. For these firms, both the propensity to export and export volumes to less restrictive destinations are significantly higher than to more restrictive destinations. In contrast, policy barriers measured by the OECD Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (STRI) do not affect export decisions of the largest, most productive and experience services firms. The pattern holds for two major modes of supply, cross-border services exports and foreign affiliate sales of services firms. The findings are consistent with firm sorting mechanisms in trade models with heterogeneous firms and hysteresis of export participation in the presence of sunk export costs.     

Exporters and Importers of Services: Firm‐Level Evidence on Italy

This work contributes to the growing literature on international trade in services at firm level. Our data set provides information on exports and imports of services (excluding transportation and travel) in 2008–09 for almost 3,000 Italian industrial and services firms, divided by partner country and type of service. We report a set of stylised facts on services trade and analyse the choice between export and foreign direct investment in services at the firm level. We find that the export and import of services are highly concentrated in just a few firms. Firm‐level variation in trade is positively correlated with firm size and productivity. Country‐level variation is to a large extent explained by the standard gravity variables: distance strongly reduces trade in services in spite of their intangibility. Smaller and less productive firms choose to export rather than sell through foreign affiliates, although there is some heterogeneity among service types.     

我国出口企业的“生产率悖论”及其解释

本文用1998-2007年的中国工业企业数据,选取近300万家企业,分20个行业检验了我国企业出口与生产率的关系,结果显示:只供应国内市场的企业生产率反而高于出口企业;并且企业出口与生产率呈现负相关关系,即生产率越低的企业出口越多。此结论与新-新贸易理论的结论相悖,我们称之为生产率悖论。进一步检验还发现,企业规模是影响出口的主要因素,而出口贸易对于企业生产率的影响是不显著的。笔者认为,导致我国出口企业出现生产率悖论的原因可能在于我国加工贸易较多,且占据了出口贸易的主体。     

The great trade collapse and the Spanish export miracle: Firm‐level evidence from the crisis

We provide novel evidence on the microstructure of international trade during the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent global recession by exploring a rich firm‐level data set from Spain. The focus of our analysis is on changes at the extensive and intensive firm‐level margins of trade, as well as on performance differences (jobs, productivity and firm survival) across firms that differ in their export status. We find no adverse effects of the financial crisis on foreign market entry or exit, but a considerable increase in the export intensity of firms after the financial crisis. Moreover, we find that exporters were more resilient to the crisis than non‐exporters. Finally, while exporters showed a significantly more favourable development of total factor productivity after 2009 than non‐exporters, aggregate productivity declined substantially in a large number of industries in Spanish manufacturing. We also briefly explore two factors that might help explain the surprisingly strong export performance of Spain in the aftermath of the great trade collapse: improved aggregate competitiveness due to internal and external devaluation and a substitutive relationship between domestic and foreign sales at the firm level.     

International trade in services: A portrait of importers and exporters

We provide a novel set of stylized facts on firms engaging in international trade in services, using unique data on firm-level exports and imports from the world's second largest services exporter, the United Kingdom (UK). We show that only a fraction of UK firms engage in international trade in services, that trade participation varies widely across industries and that service traders are different from non-traders in terms of size, productivity and other firm characteristics. We also provide detailed evidence on the trading patterns of service exporters and importers, such as the number of markets served, the value of exports and imports per market and the share of individual markets in overall sales. We interpret these facts in the light of existing theories of international trade in services and goods. Our results demonstrate that firm-level heterogeneity is a key feature of services trade. Also, we find many similarities between services and goods trade at the firm level and conclude that existing heterogeneous firm models for goods trade will be a good starting point for explaining trade in services as well.     

The Impact of Exporting and Importing Goods and Services on Productivity in the UK

This paper investigates the impact of exporting and importing on productivity for UK plants using a combination of regression and propensity score matching. Unlike earlier papers, the data allows us to distinguish the effects of trade in goods and services. In confirmation of the results from other countries, we find that plants that both export and import have higher productivity than plants that only do one of these activities. In manufacturing, this is the case regardless of whether the trade is in goods or services (which suggests that servitisation of manufacturing is beneficial).In services, the results are more mixed and the benefits from involvement in international goods networks that are seen in manufacturing do not occur to the same extent (however, for the wholesale and retail sectors, trade in both goods and services is generally productivity enhancing).     

Export and Firm Performance: Evidence on Productivity and Profitability of Italian Companies

Empirical research in international trade has shown that exporting firms display higher productivity than their non-exporting competitors. This paper focuses on the relation between export and profitability. Our evidence on Italian exporting firms shows that exporting activity is not systematically associated to higher firm’s profitability. This is shown both by means of non-parametric methods and, with an approach that is more standard within the empirical trade literature, by regression techniques that try to identify an “export premium”.     

Import Churning and Export Performance of Multi‐product Firms

This paper analyses the impact of churning in the imported varieties of capital and intermediate inputs on firm export scope and productivity. Using detailed data on imports and exports at the firm‐product‐market level, we document substantial churning in both imports and exports for Slovenian manufacturing firms in the period 1994–2008. On average, a firm changes about one‐quarter of imported and exported product‐markets every year, while gross churning in terms of added and dropped product‐markets is almost three times higher. A substantial share of this product churning is due to simultaneous imports and exports of firms in identical varieties within the same CN‐8 product code (so called pass‐on‐trade). We find that churning in imported varieties is far more important than reduction in tariffs or declines in import prices for firms’ productivity growth and increased export product scope. We also find gross churning has a bigger impact on firm productivity improvements by a factor of more than 10 in comparison with net churning. Both adding and dropping of imported input varieties thus seem to be of utmost importance for firms aiming to optimise their input mix towards their most valuable inputs. These effects are further enhanced when excluding simultaneous trade in identical varieties, suggesting that pass‐on‐trade has less favourable effects on firms’ long‐run performance than regular trade.     

异质性生产率、货款回收与中国企业出口

采用2005-2008年东三省持续存在的8 932家企业面板数据,本文检验了生产率和货款回收因素在出口中的作用,发现出口企业的全要素生产率、货款回收率都高于非出口企业,这说明该地区并不存在出口"生产率悖论;"高生产率和规避国内账款回收困难是企业出口的决定因素,通过对应收账款的内生性分析发现这一结果是稳健的;企业所有制性质、企业规模也会促进出口,而利润和企业成立年限对出口的影响并不显著。因此,提升企业效率、改善企业运行机制、健全社会信用制度是我国亟待解决的现实问题。     

A league of their own: services exporters – a developing country perspective

This paper provides a firm-level portrait of services exporters along with goods exporters in a developing country. Current findings of firm-level services trade literature suggest that the stylized facts of goods trade apply to services trade as well for a set of developed countries. This paper investigates if similar results hold for a developing country, Turkey, for the period 2003–2008. Most results lend support to the evidence found in the previous literature. However, the analysis of Turkish data shows that firms that export both goods and services are larger than those exporting goods or services only while multinationals that sell only goods are bigger than multinationals exporting both goods and services or those exporting only services.     

Entry to foreign markets and productivity: Evidence from a matched sample of Turkish manufacturing firms

We examine the effects of international trading activities of firms on creating productivity gains in Turkey by using a recent firm-level data set over the period 2003–2010. We establish treatment models and investigate the productivity improvements of firms through trade by using propensity score matching techniques together with difference-in-difference estimates. Three different groups of treatment are constructed: (1) firms that are involved only with import activities, (2) firms that are involved only with export activities and (3) firms that are involved with both export and import activities. The results of the study suggest that both exporting and importing have positive significant effects on total factor productivity (TFP) and labour productivity (LP) of firms. Importing is found to have a greater impact on productivity of firms compared to exporting. Further, two-way trade is found to have more significant effects than those of one-way trade on firm productivity. Finally, our results indicate that international trade has greater impact on LP rather than TFP of firms.     

Trade effects of the Europe agreements: A theory-based gravity approach

We analyze normalized productivity differences for 15 developing Latin American countries and four firm types: National Domestic, National Exporter, Foreign Domestic, and Foreign Exporter. There are no productivity thresholds for viability, export activity, or multinational activity, but we do find a clear size productivity premium and development productivity premium in the manufacturing sectors. We also find a clear foreign-ownership productivity premium, both for domestic firms and for exporting firms and both for manufacturing sectors and services sectors. In contrast, we only find an export productivity premium for national firms in the manufacturing sectors.     

A reappraisal of strategic trade policies with the endogenous mode of competition under vertical structures

This paper examines the endogenous choice of competition mode with strategic export policies in vertically related markets when each upstream firm located in each country determines the terms of the two-part tariff contract by maximizing generalized Nash bargaining. We show that (i) choosing Cournot (Bertrand) competition is the dominant strategy for both downstream firms when goods are substitutes (complements), which leads Pareto superior regardless of the nature of goods under the optimal trade policies; (ii) irrespective of rival’s competition mode, the optimal trade policy is an export subsidy under Cournot competition and an export tax under Bertrand competition; and (iii) trade liberalization may give rise to changes of competition mode and increase of social welfare.     

Migration and servicification: Do immigrant employees spur firm exports of services?

Services play an increasingly important role in production, employment and international trade but are subject to substantially higher trade costs relative to manufactured goods. Knowledge of how these trade costs can be mitigated is important for facilitating trade of services. In this paper, we analyse the role of immigrant employees as facilitators of firm exports of services, a role that remains largely unexamined. We bridge the gap in existing research by drawing on new data for nearly 30,000 Swedish firms during the period 1998–2007 within a heterogeneous firm framework. The results have important policy implications. As the multilateral approach to facilitating trade is challenged and more countries are imposing measures to restrict the cross‐country mobility of people, policymakers may need to find new ways to promote exports of services. Our results indicate that immigrant employees spur firms' export of services activities: hiring one additional foreign‐born worker can increase services exports by approximately 2.5 per cent, on average, with a stronger effect found for skilled and newly arrived immigrants. Therefore, policymakers could leverage the findings of this study to implement initiatives that utilise high‐skilled immigrants to promote services exports.     

中国文化贸易结构和贸易竞争力分析

基于文化产品和服务进出口数据,对中国文化贸易结构、国际市场占有率、贸易竞争力指数、显示性比较优势指数的分析表明,尽管中国是文化产品出口第一大国,但文化贸易结构不合理,文化产业总体国际竞争力较弱且发展不平衡;中国文化贸易的竞争优势主要体现在手工艺品、设计、视觉艺术品和新媒体这些外围的文化产品中,具有核心内容的影视媒介、音乐媒介、出版物及版权、文化休闲娱乐服务等文化出口比重低、竞争力弱。     

Strategic trade policies with first-mover and second-mover advantages in a vertical structure

With strategic trade policies, we consider first- and second-mover advantages in a vertical structure given the two-part tariff contract (composed of the input price and the fixed fee) of an upstream firm, where a home and a foreign final-good firms export to a third-country market. We find that the upstream firms’ and governments’ preference orderings over sequential versus simultaneous play and over free trade versus a regime of subsidies contrast with early results in the strategic trade policy. Thus, the endogenous market structure is that (i) the potential leader chooses the Leader role with quantity strategies, and the equilibrium trade regime is unilateral subsidy regardless of the nature of goods; (ii) with price strategies, the potential leader chooses the simultaneous timing, and the equilibrium trade regime is bilateral taxes (free trade) when goods are substitutes (complements).     

Participation in export and Chinese firms’ capacity utilization

This paper first sets up a firm heterogeneity trade model and shows that given capital stock and productivity, export firms will have higher rates of capacity utilization. In addition, given capital stock and fixed export costs, firms with higher productivity are more likely to export. I then use the 2012 Chinese enterprise survey from the World Bank to empirically investigate the impact of participation in export on Chinese firms’ capacity utilization rate. The results show that on average, export firms have capacity utilization rate 1.55–2.01 percent higher than non-export firms, which amounts to 14.6–18.9 percent of the standard deviation of capacity utilization rate in the sample. I also find that firms with a larger part of shares owned by the government have lower capacity utilization. Stronger market competition leads to over-investment and therefore lower capacity utilization rate. Faced with more rigorous labor market regulation, firms will substitute capital for the use of labor, resulting in higher capacity utilization rate.     

Managers' mobility,trade performance,and wages

Knowledge is key to the competitiveness and success of an organization and in particular of a firm. Firms and their managers acquire knowledge via a variety of different channels which are often difficult to track down and quantify. By matching employer–employee data with trade data at the firm level we show that the export experience acquired by managers in previous firms leads their current firm toward higher export performance, and commands a sizeable wage premium for the manager. Moreover, export knowledge is decisive when it is market-specific: managers with experience related to markets served by their current firm receive an even higher wage premium; firms are more likely to enter markets where their managers have experience; exporters are more likely to stay in those markets, and their sales are on average higher. Our findings are robust to controlling for unobserved heterogeneity and, more broadly, endogeneity and indicate that managers' export experience is a first-order feature in the data with an impact on a firm's export performance that is, for example, at least as strong as that of firm productivity.