What makes a successful exporter? An introduction

The papers in this issue continue with the tradition of adding puzzles pieces to the overall picture of the impact and importance of firm international activities. In "What makes a successful exporter?", we have collected twelve papers, the majority of which were presented at the 13th annual ISGEP workshop in Ljubljana, Slovenia on 20–21 September 2018. The common thread linking these papers is that they explore both what it means to be an exporter and the ramifications of exporting on firms and the economy as a whole. On the one hand, this special issue addresses the role of foreign sourcing, export experience in the board of directors and credit supply shocks on the propensity to export, as well as the factors that affect firms' overall readiness to export. On the other hand, it investigates various measures of performance in the export markets, such as export duration, markups, quality upgrading and product mix.     

International standards certification,institutional voids and exports from developing country firms

This paper analyses the impact of International Standards Certification (ISC) on the export participation and the scale of exports of firms based in 89 developing or transition countries. We conceptualise ISC as an endogenous institutional advantage, which bridges institutional voids in the country and helps firms to export. The empirical results show that certified firms are more likely to export, and to export on a larger scale. The impact of ISC runs through two channels: productivity and transaction cost economies. We show that certification plays an important role in bringing down transaction costs in international markets, while also maintaining and raising efficiency. This finding is reinforced by additional evidence, suggesting that ISC matters more for the export participation of domestic firms than for foreign firms and is of greater importance for firms based in countries characterised by severe institutional voids.     

中日韩高技术产品出口贸易技术特征和演进趋势研究——基于出口复杂度的实证研究

高技术制造业作为一国技术实力的核心,日益受到各国的重视。中日韩三国均为高技术产品出口大国,而且中日韩FTA谈判即将启动。在此背景下,本文在描述了中日韩三国高技术产品现状的基础上,采用Hausmann构造的出口复杂度指数,按HS4位编码测算了中日韩三国高技术产品的出口复杂度,并据此分析了中日韩三国高技术产品出口的技术特征和发展趋势。我们发现,虽然中国已经成为全球最大的高技术产品出口国家,但日本和韩国的高技术产品技术含量更高,高技术产业发展更加成熟,而且中国与日韩高技术产业出口产品的技术含量差距正在扩大。最后,本文就此提出相关建议,以促进中国高技术产业的技术水平进一步提升。     

国际贸易出口限制的分析研究

目前许多发展中国家在国际贸易中纷纷采取限制出口的措施。被限制出口的产品主要是资源性产品,由于金属类矿物产品的重要地位,限制金属类矿物产品出口受到广泛关注。各国使用出口限制有自己的理由,出口限制对经济和贸易有一定的影响,于是在多边贸易体制中存在着对出口限制的制约,这也成为解决因出口限制引发贸易摩擦的依据,我国如何利用好国际贸易规则已成为一个急迫解决的问题。     

The effect of transaction cost antecedents on control mechanisms: Exporters’ psychic distance and economic knowledge as moderators

The purpose of this research is to determine how a manufacturer's reduction in export involvement barriers may moderate the effect of transaction cost drivers on control mechanisms (monitoring and information sharing). Utilizing Transaction Cost Analysis and internationalization literature, asset specificity and environment diversity are the transaction cost drivers and economic knowledge and psychic distance are the moderators. The results indicate that as manufacturers increase export involvement through reduction in economic knowledge differences it strengthens the positive relationship between asset specificity and monitoring and diversity and monitoring and weakens the corresponding relationships with information sharing. Psychic distance reduction weakened the positive effect between asset specificity and information sharing only. The results of the other three hypotheses were in the direction hypothesized but non-significant. Manufacturers may continue export involvement through intermediary usage provided they regulate their monitoring and information sharing practices in accordance with the overall influence of asset specificity, diversity, economic knowledge, and psychic distance.     

我国盆栽植物出口贸易现状及对策建议

利用海关统计数据—2017-2019年的我国盆栽植物的出口贸易数据,分析种用除外的兰花、菊花、百合、康乃馨及未列名活植物五类盆栽植物产品的出口量、出口额、出口贸易的目标市场及境内货源地,我国盆栽植物出口贸易现状及面临的主要问题,并提出相关建议:坚持市场多元化发展策略,优化市场结构;加强科学生产,促进产业转型升级;加快行业标准体系的构建,积极推行国际认证,避开绿色贸易壁垒;提高自主研发创新能力,加强知识产权保护;利用跨境电子商务,破解出口困境。     

台湾中国输出入银行之转型经验

子台湾在经历了成功的经济发展初期之后，为因应出口替代需要，以及持续扩大出口以巩固经济成长，开始以政策性金融之方式，补足一般私有金融未能充分发挥之功能。特别是关于出口产业方面，为提高长期融资之比重，政府在成立了中小企业银行后，依循世界各国对进出口金融之先例，在1979年由财政部100名出资，成立了“台湾中国输出入银行”。该行主要任务为配合政府经贸政策，提供金融服务，协助厂商拓展对外贸易与海外投资，并增进国际合作，以持续推动台湾经济稳定与发展。输出入银的转型，仍将扮演资金供给者角色，有助于其业务触角与利茎，提升知名度。     

中国纺织品服装出口的增长策略研究

随着世界经济环境的不断变化,中国纺织品服装出口呈现明显波动、比重逐年降低。针对这一趋势,本文以中国纺织品服装出口为研究对象,分析了当前出口的现状,综合利用宏观和微观力量、配合内外部的推力和拉力提出中国纺织品服装出口的增长策略,推动中国纺织品服装出口的发展。     

人民币均衡汇率、汇率错位与出口关系的实证分析

本文运用1978—2005年的数据，分别计算了人民币均衡汇率水平和汇率错位程度，并运用两步法和误差修正模型分析了人民币均衡汇率、汇率错位与出口之间的关系。     

True versus spurious state dependence in firm performance

This paper analyzes the persistence of firms’ exporting behavior in a panel of German manufacturing firms using dynamic binary choice models. We distinguish between true and spurious state dependence in exports and apply fixed effects methods that allow us to verify the robustness of our results to critical assumptions on firms’ initial export status. We find robust evidence of state dependence in the current export status of firms. We also document an important role of unobserved permanent firm heterogeneity (spurious state dependence) and quantify the relative importance of different export determinants. Our results, which are consistent with the findings of previous studies on firms in developing countries and in the United States, show the presence of important sunk costs in export market entry and a depreciation of knowledge and experience in export markets. This paper benefitted substantially from three anonymous referees and Bernd Fitzenberger, one of the editors of this journal. The authors wish to thank the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Mannheim, for its hospitality during the time this study was carried out. Both authors gratefully acknowledge helpful comments received at a workshop hosted by the Centre for Applied Microeconometrics, University of Copenhagen workshop, especially those from Bo Honoré. Useful discussions with Georg Licht also lead to improvements of this paper. We thank Ken Chay for sharing Gauss codes used in parts of the paper. Lastly, we would like to thank Bettina Peters, a member of the ZEW team that compiles the data set used in this study, for data guidance and numerous helpful comments. The activities of the Centre for Applied Microeconometrics are financed by a grant from the Danish National Research Foundation.