Export market participation with sunk costs and firm heterogeneity

In this article we investigate the importance of sunk costs, firm characteristics and spillovers from nearby exporters on a firm's decision to participate in exporting. The empirical analysis involves the estimation of a nonstructural, discrete choice, dynamic model with firm heterogeneity. By using panel data for Estonian companies from 1994 to 1999 we find that: (i) both sunk costs and observable firm characteristics are important determinants of export market participation; (ii) previous history matters, in that, if a firm has been exporting the previous period or the period before, it significantly increases the likelihood of the firm exporting in the current period; (iii) larger firms with high capital intensity and foreign ownership are more likely to be exporters; (iv) operating in an export-oriented industry increases a firm's likelihood of exporting.     

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。     

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.     

Firm heterogeneity and trade-induced layoffs: An empirical investigation

We use a novel data set with verified observations of trade-induced layoffs by U.S. firms to study the interaction between firm productivity and trade liberalization as key determinants of firm-level job destruction due to trade. We find that patterns of trade-induced layoffs are broadly consistent with the predictions for firm-level employment generated by the Melitz (2003) heterogeneous firms theory – the number of trade-induced layoffs increases with firm productivity for non-exporting firms but decreases with firm productivity for exporting firms. The fact that exporting firms incur trade-induced layoffs at all invites a refined interpretation of the theory. Our findings suggest that exporting firms may lay off some workers who work in production for their shrinking domestic segments, while also engaging in some within-firm reallocation of workers. We also find that, even after controlling for productivity and export status, larger firms lay off more workers due to trade competition.     

Trade liberalization,forward‐looking firms,and welfare

We set up an oligopolistic model with two exporting firms selling to a third market to investigate the welfare implications of trade liberalization when the exporting firms are forward‐looking. The results show that with cost asymmetry trade liberalization encourages the exporting firms to engage in tacit collusion, which may not only be detrimental to the domestic welfare, but also to the consumer surplus of the importing country. Moreover, we find that tacit collusion is less sustainable if the government of the importing country imposes a lower (higher) tariff on the more (less) efficient exporting firm. If a nonforward‐looking or a forward‐looking cost‐efficient domestic firm exists in the importing country, then trade liberalization also encourages tacit collusion.     

One‐off export events

Isolated single‐month, one‐off export transactions (observed once in a 49‐month window) turn out to be the dominant spell length in granular firm–product–destination trade data. Moreover, on average, for an export‐active firm, such one‐off events generate a significant part of foreign sales. These patterns cannot be explained by the lumpiness of trade (e.g., seasonal shipments), nor do they sit well with available trade models. To reconcile theory with the data, we introduce passive (i.e., unsolicited buyer‐side driven) exporting in addition to proactive exporting. Our empirical investigation establishes novel stylized facts on firm and destination characteristics associated with one‐off exporting.     

THE IMPACT OF EXPORTING AND FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT ON PRODUCT INNOVATION: EVIDENCE FROM CHINESE MANUFACTURERS

To understand the drivers of product innovation at the firm level, I compare the effects of foreign direct investment (FDI) and exporting on product innovation using a rich firm‐level database of manufacturing and industrial enterprises. The article focuses on product innovation, as it is vital to economic development. Estimates from linear regressions and propensity score matching tests show that learning‐by‐exporting is a stronger predictor of product innovation. Firms that receive foreign investment also tend to engage in more product innovation, but not at the same level as the firms that export. Additional tests confirm that as they start and stop exporting, firms change their patterns of investment in the drivers of product innovation—fixed capital and research. (JEL D22, F14, F23, L25, O31)     

Multinationals,Information Update,and Product Adaptation *

This paper develops a dynamic model of decision making by multinational firms. The firm chooses between exporting and producing abroad when it expands the market. Bayes learning is incorporated into this model in addition to fixed cost and transport cost Production in a foreign country gives the firm new information about the demand function. This information is applied to adjust the firm's expectation as well as output choice in the future. This process not only reduces the risk encountered by a firm in a foreign market, but also increases acceptance of the product which the firm manufactures. This paper concludes even if producing abroad loses money in the first period, the firm may still choose to set up plants in foreign countries rather than exporting, due to the dynamic information advantage associated with going multinational. [F23,F21]     

Financial Development and Inequality in the Global Economy

We build a heterogeneous firms model with firm‐specific wages and credit frictions to study the role of financial development for inequality in the global economy. If there are many small (non‐exporting) firms, better access to external funds reduces wage and profit inequality as well as unemployment. In contrast, if there are many large (exporting) firms, financial development might have opposite effects – especially if trade costs are low. In summary, the implications of financial development for inequality depend on the size distribution of firms and on the costs of exporting. Trade liberalization, however, raises inequality unambiguously.     

Does Exporting Increase Productivity? A Microeconometric Analysis of Matched Firms

Exporting involves sunk costs, so some firms export whilst others do not. This proposition derives from a number of models of firm behavior and has been exposed to microeconometric analysis. Evidence from the latter suggests that exporting firms are generally more productive than nonexporters. They self‐select, in that they are more productive before they enter export markets, but the evidence suggests that entry does not make them any more productive. This paper investigates exporting and firm performance for a large panel of UK manufacturing firms, applying matching techniques. The authors find that exporters are more productive and they do self‐select. In contrast to other evidence, however, exporting further increases firm productivity.     

Political markets? Politics and economics in the emergence of markets for biodiversity offsets

This paper analyses the relationship between politics and performativity of economics in the emergence of markets for biodiversity offsets. While the role of economics in constructing markets has been demonstrated by sociology and social studies of science, it has also become apparent that politics plays an important role in the material outcome of economic experiments. Two case studies of the creation of markets for biodiversity offsets are analysed, in the United States and England. The findings suggest that the creation of both markets is rooted in the language, concepts and models of economics. Politics, on the other hand, functions as a mediator of the material expression of those models. Through this mediation effect, similar economic models are performed differently, resulting in a variety of markets. This suggests that the material outcomes of processes of market creation are not defined at the outset, but can be influenced by political processes.     

The returns to exporting: evidence from UK firms

Abstract The question of learning versus self‐selection has dominated the micro‐econometric literature on firm export decisions without leading to any firm conclusions. In part this reflects the limited information content of the data typically used. In this paper we use survey data on UK firms to offer some new insights into this debate. We find that the majority of firms report benefits to exporting across a wide range of performance measures, including size, profitability, and the introduction of new products. These effects do not decline as the number of years of exporting rises if the export intensity of the firm rises.     

Optimal tariffs with inframarginal exporters

This paper shows that an importing country can have an incentive to impose a tariff to extract rents earned by foreign exporters even in a perfectly competitive setting. To demonstrate this, I develop a new model of international trade that incorporates fixed costs of exporting and firm heterogeneity within a perfectly competitive framework. In this setting, despite the fact that there are no preexisting distortions, the optimal tariff is positive even for a small country with no world market power. In the limit, as either firm heterogeneity or the fixed costs of exporting vanish, the optimal tariff approaches zero.     

Political Influence of Firms in the Tradables and Non‐Tradables Sectors: A Cross‐Country Analysis

Recent theoretical studies have shown that firms lobby government agencies to influence the structure of trade policies. This article empirically examines whether firms classified as either exporting or import‐competing (i.e. firms in the tradables sector) have differential levels of political influence relative to domestic firms that only produce non‐traded goods (i.e. firms in the non‐tradables sector). We use a rich firm‐level, cross‐sectional dataset from the World Business Environment Survey to achieve this objective. Results from the analysis reveal that exporting or import‐competing firms do have more political influence relative to domestic firms that neither export nor produce import‐competing goods. Market structure, firm age, firm size, government ownership, and dependence on public infrastructure also affect the extent of political influence that firms have.     

Managing Foreign Direct Investment: Commitment, Deterrence, And Diversion

The paper models the multinational choice between foreign direct investment in and exporting to a domestic market as an equilibrium outcome of strategic play between domestic and foreign firms. Two cases are considered, one in which the domestic firm can precommit to output levels (as, for example, through investment in a distribution network), and one in which such precommitment is not possible. The domestic firm's strategy in the case of precommitment includes aggressive efforts to deter or divert foreign investment and results in fewer observed equilibria with foreign investment than would otherwise occur. Tariffs designed to switch the foreign decision from exporting to direct investment may lead instead to monopolization of the market by the domestic firm.     

Bargaining externalities in a privatization programme

In privatization programmes, the state commonly keeps a minority ownership stake in firms. We provide an explanation based on the externality that privatization of one firm has on the profitability of others. If this externality is negative, as with oligopolistic firms, the government can gain a strategic advantage in bargaining over the sale of one firm if it keeps an ownership share in another. We consider both the simultaneous and the sequential sale of firms. The results apply to the period in which privatization takes place, and are consistent with the delayed sale of minority ownership often observed in practice.     

Endogenous Timing in a Strategic Trade Policy Game: A Two-Country Oligopoly Model with Multiple Firms

This paper examines strategic trade policy games where the number of firms in the importing and exporting countries differs and all firms play as Cournot oligopolies. Under the assumption of linear demand and constant marginal cost, we show that, if the number of firms in the exporting country exceeds that in the importing country by more than three, the government of the exporting country chooses to move as a leader, imposing an export tax on firms. The government of the importing country then becomes a follower and imposes an import tariff. This lies contrary to the previous study, which assumed that there is only one firm in each country.     

Modelling information and hedging: The exporting firm

The paper examines the economic role of modelling information on the decision problem of an exporting firm under exchange rate risk and hedging. Information is described in terms of market transparency, i.e., a publicly observable signal conveys more information about the random foreign exchange rate. We analyze the interaction between market transparency and the ex ante expected utility of the exporting firm. It is shown that more transparency on the foreign exchange market may result in higher or lower export production.     

Does a “survival-by-exporting” effect for SMEs exist?

The trade literature has long discussed the existence of some benefits attributed to exporting (learning-by-exporting), among others, the improvement in survival chances. This paper examines whether exporting SMEs enjoy better survival prospects than non-exporting SMEs. We investigate the determinants of survival of exporting and non-exporting SMEs and explore whether the exporting behaviour plays a significant role in explaining their probability of exit. For this purpose, we estimate discrete time proportional hazard models that account for unobserved individual heterogeneity. The dataset is a sample of Spanish manufacturing SMEs drawn from the Encuesta sobre Estrategias Empresariales (ESEE) for 1990–2002. After controlling for firm, industry and economy characteristics, we find evidence supporting the existence of a sizeable “surviving-by-exporting” effect. That is, exporting SMEs face a significantly lower probability of failure than non-exporters.     

Unionization and International Market Share Rivalry: A Paradox

Two exporting firms (domestic and foreign) are considered which are symmetric in all respects except that one is unionized while the other faces a competitive labor market. Under free trade the unionized firm has the lower market share. Paradoxically, in the policy equilibrium, the unionized firm has the larger market share. Consequently, the nation hosting the unionized firm has the higher welfare level.