Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Exporters and importers of services: firm-level evidence on Italy

Contents:

Author Info

  • Stefano Federico

    () (Bank of Italy)

  • Enrico Tosti

    () (Bank of Italy)

Abstract

This work contributes to the small but growing body of literature on international trade in services at firm level. Our dataset, based on a new Bank of Italy survey, 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 stylized facts on trade in services. We also analyze the choice between export and foreign direct investment in services at the firm level, thus innovating with respect to the previous literature using industry data. The main findings are as follows: the export and import of services is 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.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/econo/temidi/td12/td877_12/en_td877/en_tema_877.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area in its series Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) with number 877.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: Sep 2012
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_877_12

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Via Nazionale, 91 - 00184 Roma
Web page: http://www.bancaditalia.it
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords: trade in services; firm heterogeneity; intensive and extensive margin; foreign affliates; export versus FDI;

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen & Stephen J. Redding & Peter K. Schott, 2007. "Firms in International Trade," NBER Working Papers 13054, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Thierry Mayer & Marc Melitz & Gianmarco Ottaviano, 2011. "Market Size, Competition, and the Product Mix of Exporters," Working Papers 2011-11, CEPII research center.
  3. Elisabeth Christen & Joseph Francois, 2010. "Modes of Delivery in Services," Economics working papers 2010-08, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
  4. Robert E. Lipsey, 2009. "Measuring International Trade in Services," NBER Chapters, in: International Trade in Services and Intangibles in the Era of Globalization, pages 27-70 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  5. Kelle, Markus & Kleinert, Jörn, 2010. "German firms in service trade," Economics Working Papers 2010,03, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
  6. Markus Kelle, 2012. "Crossing Industrial Borders: German Manufacturers as Services Exporters," Development Working Papers 329, Centro Studi Luca d\'Agliano, University of Milano, revised 27 Mar 2012.
  7. Fillat Castejón, Carmen & Francois, Joseph & Woerz, Julia, 2008. "Cross-Border Trade and FDI in Services," CEPR Discussion Papers 7074, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  8. Wagner, Joachim & Temouri, Yama & Vogel, Alexander, 2011. "Self-Selection into Export Markets by Business Services Firms: Evidence from France, Germany and the United Kingdom," Annual Conference 2011 (Frankfurt, Main): The Order of the World Economy - Lessons from the Crisis 48700, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
  9. Freund, C.L. & Weinhold, D., 2002. "The internet and international trade in services," Open Access publications from University College London http://discovery.ucl.ac.u, University College London.
  10. Marc J. Melitz & Gianmarco I. P. Ottaviano, 2008. "Market Size, Trade, and Productivity," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 75(1), pages 295-316.
  11. Davide Castellani & Francesco Serti & Chiara Tomasi, 2008. "Firms in International Trade: Importers and Exporters Heterogeneity in the Italian Manufacturing Industry," LEM Papers Series 2008/04, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
  12. Oldenski, Lindsay, 2012. "Export Versus FDI and the Communication of Complex Information," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 312-322.
  13. Breinlich, Holger & Criscuolo, Chiara, 2011. "International trade in services: A portrait of importers and exporters," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 188-206, July.
  14. Melitz, Marc J, 2002. "The Impact of Trade on Intra-Industry Reallocations and Aggregate Industry Productivity," CEPR Discussion Papers 3381, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  15. Bhattacharya, Rudrani & Patnaik, Ila & Shah, Ajay, 2011. "Export versus FDI in services," Working Papers 11/77, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
  16. Francois, Joseph & Hoekman, Bernard, 2009. "Services Trade and Policy," CEPR Discussion Papers 7616, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  17. Kelle, Markus & Kleinert, Jörn & Raff, Horst & Toubal, Farid, 2012. "Cross-Border and Foreign-Affiliate Sales of Services: Evidence From German Micro-Data," CEPR Discussion Papers 9016, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  18. Laura Alfaro & Maggie Chen, 2011. "Surviving the Global Financial Crisis: Foreign Ownership and Establishment Performance," NBER Working Papers 17141, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  19. Giuliano Conti & Alessia Lo Turco & Daniela Maggioni, 2010. "Exporters in Services: new Evidence from Italian Firms," Applied Economics Quarterly (formerly: Konjunkturpolitik), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 56(1), pages 73-98.
  20. Carsten Eckel & J. Peter Neary, 2010. "Multi-Product Firms and Flexible Manufacturing in the Global Economy," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 77(1), pages 188-217, 01.
  21. Marc J. Melitz & Giancarlo I. P. Ottaviano, 2008. "Market Size, Trade, and Productivity," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(1), pages 295-316, 01.
  22. Andrea Ariu & Giordano Mion, 2010. "Trade in services : IT and task content," Working Paper Research 200, National Bank of Belgium.
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 in new window

Cited by:
  1. Andrea Ariu & Giordano Mion, 2011. "Service Trade and Occupational Tasks: An Empirical Investigation," CEP Discussion Papers dp1107, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  2. Grubljesic, Tanja & Damijan, Joze, 2011. "Differences in Export Behavior of Services and Manufacturing Firms in Slovenia," Open Access publications from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven urn:hdl:123456789/319538, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
  3. Biewen, Elena & Harsch, Daniela & Spies, Julia, 2012. "The determinants of service imports: The role of cost pressure and financial constraints," Discussion Papers 31/2012, Deutsche Bundesbank, Research Centre.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bdi:wptemi:td_877_12

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ().

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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