外部需求与多产品出口企业创新:机理与事实

本文拓展了Mayer等的多产品理论模型,在多产品异质性框架下纳入企业创新行为,从微观视角揭示了外部需求变动对于多产品出口企业创新行为的影响,并分析企业生产率在其中扮演的"角色"。研究发现:外部需求扩张对多产品出口企业创新具有显著的抑制作用,但是分组回归结果表明,外部需求扩张对企业创新行为的影响存在生产率门槛,高生产率企业可以在需求扩张中提高创新水平,低生产率企业则降低创新水平;机制检验表明,外部需求扩张通过规模效应促进企业创新,通过竞争效应抑制企业创新,规模效应和竞争效应分别随企业生产率提高而强化和弱化;异质性分析表明,外部需求扩张对于多产品出口企业创新的抑制作用具有普遍性,一般贸易企业、民营企业、外资企业和高技术企业在外部需求扩张中提高创新水平的生产率门槛较低。本文为多产品企业有效应对外部需求变动、制定合理创新决策和推进对外贸易高质量发展提供理论依据和政策启示。     

Do exports generate higher productivity? Evidence from Slovenia

I use matched sampling techniques to analyze whether firms that start exporting become more productive, controlling for the self-selection into export markets. To this end, I use micro data of Slovenian manufacturing firms operating in the period 1994-2000. Overall I find that export entrants become more productive once they start exporting. The productivity gap between exporters and their domestic counterparts increases further over time. These results also hold at the industry level and are robust to other controls that may be associated with increased productivity, such as private ownership. Using information on the (firm-level) destination of exports, I find that the productivity gains are higher for firms exporting towards high income regions.     

Trade and Productivity in a Transition Economy: the Role of Industry and Export Destination

This paper focuses on the joint role of industry technology intensity and export market characteristics in the analysis of export-related productivity gains. Using a unique database of Ukrainian manufacturing firms in 2000-06, we classify all manufacturing sectors according to their technology intensity and estimate destination-specific learning by exporting effects separately for firms operating in high and low technology sectors. New exporters in high technology sectors enjoy robust long-term productivity growth premia when targeting advanced export markets, consistent with learning through exports. Export entrants in low technology sectors, instead, enjoy mostly short-term productivity improvements regardless of the export destination. Our findings suggest that the systematic distinction between the technology intensity of various industries is a relevant dimension for empirical studies on destination-specific learning by exporting.     

Learning from exporting: The moderating effect of technological capabilities

There is evidence that exporters are more productive than non-exporters. Scholars argue that exporters may have access to knowledge spillovers in foreign markets and use this knowledge to become more efficient. However, we know little about whether learning from exporting is affected by firms’ heterogeneous resource endowments and, particularly, about the specific firm characteristics that matter the most in this respect. Utilizing a sample of 1534 Spanish manufacturing firms from 1990 to 2002, we empirically analyze whether a firm's technological capabilities (proxied by its relative R&D expenditures) affect its ability to learn from the interaction with foreign agents. We find that firm productivity increases after exporting for all firms. However, ex post productivity improvements are larger for the more technologically advanced firms than they are for their less technologically advanced counterparts. Our results show that some firms stand to benefit more from exporting than others and hint at the importance of absorptive capacity for knowledge acquisition overseas.     

A model of demand,productivity and foreign location decision among Taiwanese firms

We develop a theoretical framework to examine the relative importance of firm demand and productivity in firm decisions to export and where to locate foreign direct investments. The model shows that the equilibrium firm decision depends on product technology, consumer preference for product quality, fixed investment costs of establishing a foreign subsidiary, transportation costs and relative wages. Our empirical results confirm the predictions of the theoretical model. Firm-level demand and productivity components are important in explaining the decision to participate in foreign markets with their relative importance depending on the firm's organizational form (exports versus FDI) and the destination of the investments. In general, FDI firms are more productive than exporting firms regardless of FDI destinations. FDI firms also have a higher demand component than exporters and this demand component is stronger than productivity. Finally, among FDI firms, while those with a high demand index and productivity have a significantly higher propensity to invest in high-income countries, firm productivity is the sole determinant of firms undertaking FDI in low-income countries.     

Welfare gains from Foreign Direct Investment through technology transfer to local suppliers

We hypothesize that multinational firms operating in emerging markets transfer technology to local suppliers to increase their productivity and to lower input prices. To avoid hold-up by any single supplier, the foreign firm must make the technology widely available. This technology diffusion induces entry and more competition which lowers prices in the supply market. As a result, not just the foreign-owned firm, but all firms downstream of that supply market obtain lower prices. We test this hypothesis using a panel dataset of Indonesian manufacturing establishments. We find strong evidence of productivity gains, greater competition, and lower prices among local firms in markets that supply foreign entrants. The technology transfer is Pareto improving — output and profits increase for firms in both the supplier and buyer sectors. Further, the technology transfer generates an externality that benefits buyers in other sectors downstream from the supply sector as well. This externality may provide a justification for policy intervention to encourage foreign investment.     

Internationalisation,Innovation and Productivity: How Do Firms Differ in Italy?

This paper addresses the issue of intra‐industry heterogeneity and internationalisation. We show that, after controlling for sector, location, firm age and size, Italian manufacturing companies exhibit different economic and innovative performance according to their involvement in foreign activities. In particular, exporters show intermediate innovative performance between non‐internationalised firms and those carrying out foreign production. Multinationals with a lower commitment to foreign markets, i.e. with non‐manufacturing activities abroad only, exhibit a higher productivity than exporters but they do not appear to innovate more than the latter. Heterogeneity in productivity is robust to controlling for innovation inputs and outputs, suggesting that the difference in economic performance cannot be entirely attributed to different innovative activities, and that the involvement in international operations can be a distinct channel of knowledge accumulation.     

Welfare and trade elasticity with multinational production

We explore welfare properties in a firm heterogeneity model with multinational production and export. The presence of multinational production plays a crucial role in delivering a partial trade elasticity of total sales by exporters and affiliates that is no longer constant, and depends on both supply and demand parameters. We then analyse counterfactual scenarios. Multinational production with intra-firm trade increases welfare gains by up to 4% with respect to a model with only export and no truncation. Multinational production à la Helpman et al. (American Economic Review, 2004, 94 , 300) generates the largest welfare gains from liberalisation.     

Exporting raises productivity in sub-Saharan African manufacturing firms

Proponents of trade liberalization argue that exporting helps firms to achieve higher productivity levels. This hypothesis is examined for a panel of manufacturing firms in nine African countries. The results indicate that exporters in these countries are more productive and, more importantly, exporters increase their productivity advantage after entry into the export market. While the first finding can be explained by selection-only the most productive firms engage in exporting-the latter cannot. The results are robust when unobserved productivity differences and self-selection into the export market are controlled for using different econometric methods. Scale economies are shown to be an important channel for the productivity advance. Credit constraints and contract enforcement problems prevent firms that only produce for the domestic market from fully exploiting scale economies.     

Internationalisation and Economic Performance of Enterprises: Evidence from Polish Firm‐level Data

This article provides evidence on the relative performance of internationalised firms using Polish firm‐level data, spanning the period 1996–2005 and covering all medium and large enterprises. We distinguish between three modes of internationalisation: foreign direct investment, exporting and importing of capital goods. Our results point strongly at the superior performance of foreign affiliates vs domestic firms, exporters vs non‐exporters, and importers vs non‐importers: internationalised firms are larger, more capital intensive, pay higher wages and are more productive than purely domestic firms. Foreign ownership is the strongest factor accounting for gains from internationalisation. The premia from exporting are substantially lower, though also significantly positive. The performance of capital goods importers is also higher compared to non‐importers and is to some extent related to their involvement in other types of international activity. The results are robust to the choice of specification and productivity estimator. The analysed enterprises recorded a sizeable and broad‐based productivity improvement over the period under consideration. Not only the initial levels of productivity of exporters, importers and foreign affiliates were on average significantly higher that those of their non‐internationalised counterparts, but they also recorded faster productivity gains (manifested in increasing productivity premia), so that the discrepancies grew even larger. We also perform the analysis of productivity spillovers from internationalised firms onto own, downstream and upstream sectors. We find evidence of significant horizontal and backward spillovers from all three types of international activity. Our results suggest that trade externalities are rather of a horizontal nature, while those related to foreign direct investment operate mainly via backward linkages.     

Exporting raises productivity in sub-Saharan African manufacturing firms

Proponents of trade liberalization argue that exporting helps firms to achieve higher productivity levels. This hypothesis is examined for a panel of manufacturing firms in nine African countries. The results indicate that exporters in these countries are more productive and, more importantly, exporters increase their productivity advantage after entry into the export market. While the first finding can be explained by selection–only the most productive firms engage in exporting–the latter cannot. The results are robust when unobserved productivity differences and self-selection into the export market are controlled for using different econometric methods. Scale economies are shown to be an important channel for the productivity advance. Credit constraints and contract enforcement problems prevent firms that only produce for the domestic market from fully exploiting scale economies.     

Detecting learning‐by‐exporting effects on firms' productivity distribution by accounting for heterogeneous macrofactors and panel attrition

This paper aims to verify the presence of the learning‐by‐exporting effect on total factor productivity growth. The study starts, as is typical in this context, by addressing the pre‐entry selection bias at firm level but differs from the literature by focusing on the distribution of the outcome and considering the presence of the different influences of macroeconomic factors on exporters and non‐exporters. Additionally, the paper addresses the panel attrition, a current source of estimation bias in longitudinal studies. The analysis is based on a panel of Italian manufacturing firms in the 1998–2007 period. We design an experiment by aligning and pooling cohorts of firms that allow us to obtain a sufficiently large group of firms entering the international market. Our results show that internationalisation affects firms' productivity and that the effect is heterogeneous over total factor productivity distribution and larger for the firms at the bottom section of the distribution itself. Furthermore, we observe that the learning‐by‐exporting effect may be confounded without (a) considering that domestic and exporter firms may afford heterogeneous demand cycles and (b) managing the dropout of some firms from the panel.     

Market access,supplier access,and Africa's manufactured exports: A firm level analysis

Abstract

In a large cross-country sample of manufacturing establishments drawn from 188 cities, average exports per establishments are smaller for African firms than for businesses in other regions. Based on the estimation of firm level exporting equations, we show that this is mainly because, on average, African firms face more adverse economic geography and operate in poorer institutional settings. One part of the effect of geography operates through Africa's lower ‘foreign market access’: African firms are located further away from wealthier or denser potential export markets. A second occurs through the region's lower ‘supplier access’: African firms face steeper input prices, partly because of their physical distance from cheaper foreign suppliers, and partly because domestic substitutes for importable inputs are more expensive. Africa's poorer institutions reduce its manufactured exports directly, as well as indirectly, by lowering foreign market access and supplier access. Both geography and institutions influence average firm level exports significantly more through their effect on the number of exporters than through their impact on how much each exporter sells onto foreign markets.     

Evaluating the Contribution of Exporting to UK Productivity Growth: Some Microeconomic Evidence

This study assesses the contribution of exporting activities to aggregate productivity growth in the UK for all market‐based sectors for the period 1996–2004, using a weighted FAME dataset. Based on decompositions of productivity growth, our findings suggest that, overall, exporting firms experience faster productivity growth than non‐exporting firms and therefore contribute more to national productivity growth. In addition, aggregate productivity for exporters benefits from a large contribution from ‘continuing’ firms improving their productivity, as well as exporters that have been taken‐over/merged or started‐up as new firms. In contrast, most of the TFP improvement for non‐exporters is attributable to lower productivity firms exiting, rather than from internal improvements or the productivity‐enhancing impact of new firms.     

Manufacturing restructuring and the role of real exchange rate shocks

Using a new and extensive micro data set we investigate the impact of a change in international competitive pressure on industrial performance and restructuring. Unlike previous studies we are able to account for the heterogeneity across firms in their exposure to foreign competition. We focus on a situation akin to a natural experiment, and examine the impact of a sharp real appreciation of the Norwegian Krone in the early 2000s on Norwegian manufacturing firms which differ substantially in their trade orientation. A change in the real exchange rate (RER) affects a firm through three different channels: (i) firm's export sales, (ii) firm's purchases of imported inputs, and (iii) import competition faced in the domestic market. Unlike previous studies, we are able to examine all three channels. Both net exporters and import-competing firms were exposed to increased competition due to the real appreciation. Both groups reacted by shedding labor, but only the first group experienced increasing labor productivity. Partly, the productivity improvements came from measured TFP gains, while capital deepening does not appear to have been affected by the shock.     

Exports and Productivity: A Survey of the Evidence from Firm‐level Data

While the role of exports in promoting growth in general, and productivity in particular, has been investigated empirically using aggregate data for countries and industries for a long time, only recently have comprehensive longitudinal data at the firm level been used to look at the extent and causes of productivity differentials between exporters and their counterparts which sell on the domestic market only. This paper surveys the empirical strategies applied, and the results produced, in 54 microeconometric studies with data from 34 countries that were published between 1995 and 2006. Details aside, exporters are found to be more productive than non‐exporters, and the more productive firms self‐select into export markets, while exporting does not necessarily improve productivity.     

Globalization and firm level adjustment with imperfect labor markets

In a model with search generated unemployment and heterogeneity on both sides of the labor market, exporting firms are bigger and pay higher wages than other firms. Moreover, there is imperfect persistence in the decision to export and liberalization increases the wage gap between high- and low-skill workers. Openness can increase aggregate productivity in export-oriented markets while generating within-firm productivity losses for the weakest firms. In contrast, openness can lead to within-firm productivity gains for the weakest firms in import-competing industries.     

Pure Exporter: Theory and Evidence from China

This article provides the first evidence about pure exporters (i.e. firms exporting all of their output to the foreign market) – a phenomenon overlooked and cannot be explained in the existing literature. It then offers a theoretical analysis of the existence and behaviour of pure exporters. In particular, pure exporters arise when the export market is sufficiently large – a situation more likely to hold in developing countries as opposed to large developed countries, and their productivity levels are above those of nonexporters, but below those of firms having both domestic sales and export. These theoretical predictions are borne out in a data of Chinese manufacturing firms for the period of 1998–2005.     

Quality-cum-price sorting

This paper provides new evidence on how export status relates to prices and product quality. Using firm-product-level data on production, exports and imports for a sample of Danish manufacturing firms, we present three key correlations. First, exported varieties are on average sold at lower prices relative to only domestically sold varieties. Second, exported varieties have higher quality measured by ‘demand residuals’ (i.e., they have larger sales conditional on price). Finally, exported varieties are produced using cheaper imported intermediates. We introduce the term ‘quality-cum-price sorting’ to describe this sorting environment. The observed sorting behaviour in terms of output quality and import prices works not just across firms, but also within multi-product firms across the product portfolio. In contrast, the negative exporter premium in terms of output prices vanishes once firm-level unobservables are accounted for—consistent with the idea that unobserved firm efficiency is driving the negative correlation.     

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.