IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp1185.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Exporting Firms Do Not Pay Higher Wages, Ceteris Paribus. First Evidence from Linked Employer-Employee Data

Author

Listed:
  • Schank, Thorsten

    (University of Mainz)

  • Schnabel, Claus

    (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg)

  • Wagner, Joachim

    (Leuphana University Lüneburg)

Abstract

18 studies using data from 20 highly developed, developing, and less developed countries document that average wages in exporting firms are higher than in non-exporting firms from the same industry and region. The existence of these so-called exporter wage premia is one of the stylized facts found in the emerging literature on the microeconometrics of international trade. This paper uses a large and rich set of linked employer-employee data from Germany to demonstrate that these premia vanish when individual characteristics of the employees and of the work place are controlled for.

Suggested Citation

  • Schank, Thorsten & Schnabel, Claus & Wagner, Joachim, 2004. "Exporting Firms Do Not Pay Higher Wages, Ceteris Paribus. First Evidence from Linked Employer-Employee Data," IZA Discussion Papers 1185, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1185
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp1185.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Andrew Bernard & Joachim Wagner, 1997. "Exports and success in German manufacturing," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 133(1), pages 134-157, March.
    3. Wagner, Joachim & Schnabel, Claus & Schank, Thorsten, 2004. "Exporting firms do not pay higher wages, ceteris paribus : First evidence from linked employer-employee data," Discussion Papers 27, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Labour and Regional Economics.
    4. Van Biesebroeck, Johannes, 2005. "Exporting raises productivity in sub-Saharan African manufacturing firms," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 373-391, December.
    5. Eric A. Verhoogen, 2008. "Trade, Quality Upgrading, and Wage Inequality in the Mexican Manufacturing Sector," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 123(2), pages 489-530.
    6. Bernard, Andrew B. & Bradford Jensen, J., 1999. "Exceptional exporter performance: cause, effect, or both?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 1-25, February.
    7. Simmons, R. & Schank, Thorsten & Andrews, Martyn J., 2004. "Does Worksharing Work? Some Empirical Evidence from the IAB Panel," Discussion Papers 25, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Labour and Regional Economics.
    8. Andrew B. Bernard & J. Bradford Jensen, 2004. "Why Some Firms Export," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(2), pages 561-569, May.
    9. Jens Matthias Arnold & Katrin Hussinger, 2005. "Export Behavior and Firm Productivity in German Manufacturing: A Firm-Level Analysis," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 141(2), pages 219-243, July.
    10. Chin Hee Hahn, 2004. "Exporting and Performance of Plants: Evidence from Korean Manufacturing," NBER Working Papers 10208, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Hansson, Pär & Lundin, Nan Nan, 2003. "Exports as an Indicator on or Promoter of Successful Swedish Manufacturing Firms in the 1990s," Working Paper Series 189, Trade Union Institute for Economic Research.
    12. 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.
    13. Jin-Tan Liu & Meng-Wen Tsou & James Hammitt, 1999. "Export activity and productivity: Evidence from the Taiwan electronics industry," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 135(4), pages 675-691, December.
    14. Abowd, John M. & Kramarz, Francis, 1999. "The analysis of labor markets using matched employer-employee data," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 40, pages 2629-2710, Elsevier.
    15. Audretsch,David B. & Thurik,Roy (ed.), 1999. "Innovation, Industry Evolution and Employment," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521641661.
    16. José C. Fariñas & Ana Martín‐Marcos, 2007. "Exporting and Economic Performance: Firm‐level Evidence of Spanish Manufacturing," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 618-646, April.
    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. Andersen, Torben M & Sorensen, Allan, 2005. "Product Market Integration, Wages and Inequality," CEPR Discussion Papers 4963, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Wagner, Joachim & Schnabel, Claus & Schank, Thorsten, 2004. "Exporting firms do not pay higher wages, ceteris paribus : First evidence from linked employer-employee data," Discussion Papers 27, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Chair of Labour and Regional Economics.
    3. Sébastien Breau & David L. Rigby, 2006. "Is There Really an Export Wage Premium? A Case Study of Los Angeles Using Matched Employee-Employer Data," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 29(3), pages 297-310, July.
    4. Carli Bezuidenhout & Marianne Matthee & Neil Rankin, 2021. "Exporting and the wage premium: The case of South African manufacturing firms," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 2031-2051, November.
    5. Sébastien Breau & David L. Rigby, 2006. "Is There Really an Export Wage Premium? A Case Study of Los Angeles Using Matched Employee-Employer Data," Working Papers 06-06, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    6. Shay Tsur, 2021. "Why Do Exporters Pay Higher Wages? Empirical Evidence From Israeli Companies," Israel Economic Review, Bank of Israel, vol. 19(1), pages 1-30.
    7. Alda, Holger & Bender, Stefan & Gartner, Hermann, 2005. "The linked employer-employee dataset of the IAB (LIAB)," IAB-Discussion Paper 200506, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    8. Andersen, Torben M. & Sørensen, Allan, 2007. "Product Market Integration and Labour Markets: Aggregate Gains at the Cost of More Inequality?," IZA Discussion Papers 2556, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Torben M. Andersen & Allan Sørensen, 2008. "Product Market Integration and Heterogeneity—Rent Sharing and Pricing to Market," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(2), pages 268-284, May.

    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. Thorsten Schank & Claus Schnabel & Joachim Wagner, 2016. "Do Exporters Really Pay Higher Wages? First Evidence from German Linked Employer–Employee Data," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Microeconometrics of International Trade, chapter 5, pages 177-213, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Irene Brambilla & Nicolas Depetris Chauvin & Guido Porto, 2015. "Wage and Employment Gains from Exports: Evidence from Developing Countries," Working Papers 2015-28, CEPII research center.
    3. 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..
    4. Neil Foster-McGregor, 2012. "Innovation and Technology Transfer across Countries," wiiw Research Reports 380, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    5. Tomasz Serwach, 2012. "Why Learning by Exporting May Not Be As Common As You Think and What It Means for Policy," International Journal of Management, Knowledge and Learning, International School for Social and Business Studies, Celje, Slovenia, vol. 1(2), pages 157-172.
    6. Irene Brambilla & Nicolas Depetris Chauvin & Guido Porto, 2017. "Examining the Export Wage Premium in Developing Countries," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 447-475, August.
    7. Carli Bezuidenhout & Marianne Matthee & Neil Rankin, 2021. "Exporting and the wage premium: The case of South African manufacturing firms," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 2031-2051, November.
    8. Ricardo A. López, 2005. "Trade and Growth: Reconciling the Macroeconomic and Microeconomic Evidence," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(4), pages 623-648, September.
    9. Ma, Yue & Tang, Heiwai & Zhang, Yifan, 2014. "Factor Intensity, product switching, and productivity: Evidence from Chinese exporters," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 349-362.
    10. Vu, Van Huong, 2012. "Higher productivity in Exporters: self-selection, learning by exporting or both? Evidence from Vietnamese manufacturing SMEs," MPRA Paper 40708, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Klein, Michael W. & Moser, Christoph & Urban, Dieter M., 2013. "Exporting, skills and wage inequality," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 76-85.
    12. Pedro Martins & Yong Yang, 2009. "The impact of exporting on firm productivity: a meta-analysis of the learning-by-exporting hypothesis," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 145(3), pages 431-445, October.
    13. Pedro S. Martins & Yong Yang, 2007. "The Impact of Exporting on Firm Productivity: A Meta-Analysis," Working Papers 6, Queen Mary, University of London, School of Business and Management, Centre for Globalisation Research.
    14. Tarlok Singh, 2010. "Does International Trade Cause Economic Growth? A Survey," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(11), pages 1517-1564, November.
    15. 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.
    16. Ana M. Fernandes & Alberto E. Isgut, 2015. "Learning-by-Exporting Effects: Are They for Real?," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(1), pages 65-89, January.
    17. BOERMANS, Martijn Adriaan, 2013. "LEARNING-BY-EXPORTING AND DESTINATION EFFECTS: EVIDENCE FROM AFRICAN SMEs," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 13(2), pages 149-168.
    18. Neil Foster & Roman Stöllinger & Carlo Altomonte & Richard Kneller, 2012. "The Trade-Productivity Nexus in the European Economy," FIW Specials series 005, FIW.
    19. Fernandes, Ana M. & Isgut, Alberto E., 2005. "Learning-by-doing, learning-by-exporting, and productivity : evidence from Colombia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3544, The World Bank.
    20. Vu, Van Huong, 2012. "Does export participation affect wages and employment quality? the case of Vietnamese SMEs," MPRA Paper 38696, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    exports; linked employer-employee data; wages; exporter wage premia; Germany;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
    • D21 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Firm Behavior: Theory
    • L60 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Manufacturing - - - General

    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:iza:izadps:dp1185. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.