IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mic/tmpjrn/v10y2014i01p3-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Link between Firm-Level Productivity and Decisions to Export

Author

Listed:
  • Piotr Gabrielczak
  • Tomasz Serwach

Abstract

The aim of this article is to test whether there are differences in productivity between exporters and non-exporters among manufacturing firms from Lodz Voivodeship. Not only do we look for a correlation, but also we verify two main hypotheses about the causality of the postulated relation: self-selection and learning-by-exporting (LBE). We use microeconomic data from the Central Statistical Office of Poland and the Olley-Pakes algorithm to estimate the total factor productivity (TFP) of firms. Then we apply that data to probit and logit estimations of export status and examine TFP increments of new exporters. We did not find sound evidence for self-selection among firms in Lodz Voivodeship. We managed, however, to prove the existence of an LBE effect, though this effect seems to be weak and restricted to certain sectors with comparative advantages. One should keep in mind that our research was limited by data availability and further studies are required. However, this study is a rare example of a regional analysis of international trade and deals with main New New Trade Theory postulates in a complex manner.

Suggested Citation

  • Piotr Gabrielczak & Tomasz Serwach, 2014. "The Link between Firm-Level Productivity and Decisions to Export," Theory Methodology Practice (TMP), Faculty of Economics, University of Miskolc, vol. 10(01), pages 3-8.
    • Handle: RePEc:mic:tmpjrn:v:10:y:2014:i:01:p:3-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://tmp.gtk.uni-miskolc.hu/volumes/2014/01/TMP_2014_01_01.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Andrew B. Bernard & Jonathan Eaton & J. Bradford Jensen & Samuel Kortum, 2003. "Plants and Productivity in International Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1268-1290, September.
    2. Mahmut Yasar & Rafal Raciborski & Brian Poi, 2008. "Production function estimation in Stata using the Olley and Pakes method," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 8(2), pages 221-231, June.
    3. Jan Hagemejer & Marcin Kolasa, 2011. "Internationalisation and Economic Performance of Enterprises: Evidence from Polish Firm‐level Data," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(1), pages 74-100, January.
    4. A. Isgut, 2001. "What's Different about Exporters? Evidence from Colombian Manufacturing," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(5), pages 57-82.
    5. Eric A. Verhoogen, 2008. "Trade, Quality Upgrading, and Wage Inequality in the Mexican Manufacturing Sector," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(2), pages 489-530.
    6. Wagner, Joachim, 2002. "The causal effects of exports on firm size and labor productivity: first evidence from a matching approach," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 287-292, October.
    7. Stephen J. Redding, 2011. "Theories of Heterogeneous Firms and Trade," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 77-105, September.
    8. Joachim Wagner, 2016. "Exports and Productivity: A Survey of the Evidence from Firm Level Data," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Microeconometrics of International Trade, chapter 1, pages 3-41, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. Andrew B. Bernard & Andreas Moxnes & Karen Helene Ulltveit-Moe, 2018. "Two-Sided Heterogeneity and Trade," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(3), pages 424-439, July.
    10. Nina Pavcnik, 2002. "Trade Liberalization, Exit, and Productivity Improvements: Evidence from Chilean Plants," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 69(1), pages 245-276.
    11. Marc J. Melitz, 2003. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(6), pages 1695-1725, November.
    12. Yeaple, Stephen Ross, 2005. "A simple model of firm heterogeneity, international trade, and wages," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 1-20, January.
    13. Joachim Wagner, 2006. "Exports, foreign direct investment, and productivity: evidence from German firm level data," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(6), pages 347-349.
    14. Jan De Loecker, 2013. "Detecting Learning by Exporting," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(3), pages 1-21, August.
    15. Marc J. Melitz & Giancarlo I. P. Ottaviano, 2021. "Market Size, Trade, and Productivity," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Firms and Workers in a Globalized World Larger Markets, Tougher Competition, chapter 4, pages 87-108, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    16. Maggioni Daniela, 2012. "Learning by Exporting in Turkey: An Investigation for Existence and Channels," Global Economy Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 12(2), pages 1-20, June.
    17. Marc J. Melitz & Gianmarco I. P. Ottaviano, 2008. "Market Size, Trade, and Productivity (DOI:10.111/j.1467-937x.2007.00463.x)," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 75(3), pages 985-985.
    18. Krugman, Paul, 1980. "Scale Economies, Product Differentiation, and the Pattern of Trade," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(5), pages 950-959, December.
    19. Olley, G Steven & Pakes, Ariel, 1996. "The Dynamics of Productivity in the Telecommunications Equipment Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(6), pages 1263-1297, November.
    20. Thierry Mayer & Gianmarco Ottaviano, 2007. "The happy few: the internationalisation of European firms New facts based on firm-level evidence," Working Papers hal-03459258, HAL.
    21. Thierry Mayer & Gianmarco Ottaviano, 2008. "The Happy Few: The Internationalisation of European Firms," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 43(3), pages 135-148, May.
    22. Delgado, Miguel A. & Farinas, Jose C. & Ruano, Sonia, 2002. "Firm productivity and export markets: a non-parametric approach," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 397-422, August.
    23. Andrew B. Bernard, 2004. "Exporting and Productivity in the USA," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 20(3), pages 343-357, Autumn.
    24. Hagemejer, Jan, 2007. "Factors driving the firms decision to export. Firm-level evidence from Poland," MPRA Paper 17717, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    25. Aguirregabiria, Victor, 2009. "Econometric Issues and Methods in the Estimation of Production Functions," MPRA Paper 15973, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    26. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/10147 is not listed on IDEAS
    27. Krugman, Paul R., 1979. "Increasing returns, monopolistic competition, and international trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 469-479, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cenk Gokce ADAS, 2016. "Exporting Firms, Productivity And Profitabiliy: A Survey Of The Evidence From Manufacturing Industries," Proceedings of International Academic Conferences 3606362, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Federico J. Diez & Jesse Mora & Alan C. Spearot, 2016. "Firms in international trade," Working Papers 16-25, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    2. Melitz, Marc J. & Redding, Stephen J., 2014. "Heterogeneous Firms and Trade," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 1-54, Elsevier.
    3. Dalgic, Basak & Fazlioglu, Burcu & Gasiorek, Michael, 2015. "Costs of trade and self-selection into exporting and importing: The case of Turkish manufacturing firms," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 9, pages 1-28.
    4. Maria Bas & Ivan Ledezma, 2015. "Trade Liberalization and Heterogeneous Technology Investments," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(4), pages 738-781, September.
    5. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2012. "The Empirics of Firm Heterogeneity and International Trade," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 283-313, July.
    6. Valeria Gattai, 2015. "Foreign exposure and heterogeneous performance of Italian firms: A survey of the empirical literature (1992-2014)," Working Papers 300, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Apr 2015.
    7. Jan De Loecker & Pinelopi K. Goldberg & Amit K. Khandelwal & Nina Pavcnik, 2016. "Prices, Markups, and Trade Reform," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 445-510, March.
    8. Piotr Gabrielczak & Tomasz Serwach, 2014. "Produktywnosc a ekspansja miedzynarodowa przedsiebiorstw. Przypadek wojewodztwa lodzkiego / Firms’ productivity and their international expansion. The case of Lodz voivodeship," International Economics, University of Lodz, Faculty of Economics and Sociology, issue 5, pages 7-28, March.
    9. Neil Foster-McGregor, 2012. "Innovation and Technology Transfer across Countries," wiiw Research Reports 380, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    10. Carlo Perroni & Davide Suverato, 2023. "Skills scarcity and export intensity," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(2), pages 719-757, May.
    11. Rudy Douven & Remco Mocking & Ilaria Mosca, 2012. "The Effect of Physician Fees and Density Differences on Regional Variation in Hospital Treatments," CPB Discussion Paper 208.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    12. Alvaro Garcia-Marin & Nico Voigtländer, 2019. "Exporting and Plant-Level Efficiency Gains: It's in the Measure," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(4), pages 1777-1825.
    13. Mirabelle Muûls & Mauro Pisu, 2009. "Imports and Exports at the Level of the Firm: Evidence from Belgium," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(5), pages 692-734, May.
    14. Arjan Lejour, 2008. "The Principle of Subsidiarity and Innovation Support Measures," CPB Memorandum 208.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    15. Valeria Gattai, 2015. "Internationalisation and performance at the firm-level: what we learn from Italy," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 42(4), pages 475-509, December.
    16. Agnieszka Klysik-Uryszek & Tomasz Serwach, 2014. "Znaczenie dzialalnosci eksportowej dla przedsiebiorstw z wojewodztwa lodzkiego - wyniki badania ankietowego / Significance of exports for enterprises from Lodz voivodeship - results of a survey," International Economics, University of Lodz, Faculty of Economics and Sociology, issue 5, pages 29-44, March.
    17. Roger Smeets & Harold Creusen & Arjan Lejour & Henk Kox, 2010. "Export margins and export barriers: uncovering market entry costs of exporters in the Netherlands," CPB Document 208.rdf, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    18. Movahedi, Mohammad, 2013. "Le commerce international, l’adoption de l’innovation et le choix de l’entrée-sortie à l’exportation des firmes [International trade, innovation adoption and export entry-exit choice of the firms]," MPRA Paper 44268, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Jan 2014.
    19. Shevtsova, Yevgeniya, 2015. "International Trade and Productivity: The Role of Industry and Export Destination," MPRA Paper 69793, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Yang, Yong & Mallick, Sushanta, 2014. "Explaining cross-country differences in exporting performance: The role of country-level macroeconomic environment," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 246-259.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    productivity; internationalisation; export; Lodz Voivodeship;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F23 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - Multinational Firms; International Business

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mic:tmpjrn:v:10:y:2014:i:01:p:3-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vgtmihu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.