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Assessing European Firms’ Exports and Productivity Distributions: The CompNet Trade Module

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Abstract

This paper provides a new cross-country evaluation of competitiveness, focusing on the linkages between productivity and export performance among European economies. We use the information compiled in the Trade module of CompNet to establish new stylized facts regarding the joint distributions of the firm-level exports performance and productivity in a panel of 15 countries, 23 manufacturing sectors during the 2000’s. We confirm that exporters are more productive than non-exporters. However, this productivity premium is rising with the export experience of firms, with permanent exporters being much more productive than starters. At the intensive margin, we show that both the level and the growth of firm-level exports rise with firm productivity, and that the bulk of aggregate exports in each country are made by few highly productive firms. Finally, we show that during the crisis, the growth of exports by high productive firms sustained the current account adjustment of European “stressed” economies. This last result confirms that the shape of the productivity distribution within each country can have important consequences from the point of view of the dynamics of aggregate trade patterns.

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  • Ana Cristina Soares & Antoine Berthou, 2015. "Assessing European Firms’ Exports and Productivity Distributions: The CompNet Trade Module," Working Papers w201513, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
  • Handle: RePEc:ptu:wpaper:w201513
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    Cited by:

    1. Biljana Jovanovic, 2020. "Export and firms' performance in North Macedonia: self selection or learning by doing?," Working Papers 2020-01, National Bank of the Republic of North Macedonia.
    2. Kozo Kiyota & Toshiyuki Matsuura & Lionel Nesta, 2019. "What'S Behind The Figures? Quantifying The Cross‐Country Exporter Productivity Gap," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(3), pages 1256-1271, July.
    3. Moisă ALTĂR & Ana-Maria CAZACU, 2016. "Testing Self-Selection And Learning By Exporting Hypotheses. The Case Of Romania," ECONOMIC COMPUTATION AND ECONOMIC CYBERNETICS STUDIES AND RESEARCH, Faculty of Economic Cybernetics, Statistics and Informatics, vol. 50(1), pages 5-22.
    4. Matteo Bugamelli & Silvia Fabiani & Stefano Federico & Alberto Felettigh & Claire Giordano & Andrea Linarello, 2018. "Back on Track? A Macro–Micro Narrative of Italian Exports," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 4(1), pages 1-31, March.
    5. Benoît Mahy & François Rycx & Guillaume Vermeylen & Mélanie Volral, 2018. "Productivity, wages and profits: Does firms’ position in the value chain matter?," Working Paper Research 358, National Bank of Belgium.
    6. Tibor Lalinsky & Jaanika Meriküll, 2021. "The Effect of the Single Currency on Exports: Comparative Firm-Level Evidence," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 17(3), pages 203-239, September.
    7. Fernando Alexandre & Sara Cruz & Miguel Portela, 2020. "Financial distress and the role of management in micro and small-sized firms," NIPE Working Papers 06/2020, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    8. Giordano, Claire & Lopez-Garcia, Paloma, 2019. "Firm heterogeneity and trade in EU countries: a cross-country analysis," Occasional Paper Series 225, European Central Bank.
    9. Nestor Duch-Brown & Bertin Martens, 2015. "Barriers to Cross-border eCommerce in the EU Digital Single Market," JRC Working Papers on Digital Economy 2015-07, Joint Research Centre (Seville site).
    10. Alex Coad & Nestor Duch-Brown, 2017. "Barriers to European cross-border E-commerce," JRC Working Papers on Digital Economy 2017-03, Joint Research Centre (Seville site).
    11. Matteo Bugamelli & Andrea Linarello & Roberta Serafini, 2019. "The 'Margin call'. Export experience and firm entry into new export markets," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 536, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    12. Konstantins Benkovskis, 2015. "Misallocation of Resources in Latvia: Did Anything Change During the Crisis?," Working Papers 2015/05, Latvijas Banka.
    13. João Amador & Arne J. Nagengast, 2015. "The Effect of Bank Shocks on Firm-Level and Aggregate Investment," Working Papers w201515, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    14. Biljana Jovanovic, 2020. "Export and firms’ performance in North Macedonia: self selection or learning by doing?," Working Papers 2020-00, National Bank of the Republic of North Macedonia.
    15. Heather D Gibson & Georgia Pavlou, 2017. "Exporting and performance:evidence from Greek firms," Economic Bulletin, Bank of Greece, issue 45, pages 7-30, July.
    16. Antoine Berthou & Emannuel Dhyne, 2018. "Exchange rate movements,firm-level exports and heterogeneity," Working Paper Research 334, National Bank of Belgium.
    17. Ferrando, Annalisa & Altomonte, Carlo & Blank, Sven & Meinen, Philipp & Iudice, Matteo & Felt, Marie-Hélène & Neugebauer, Katja & Siedschlag, Iulia, 2015. "Assessing the financial and financing conditions of firms in Europe: the financial module in CompNet," Working Paper Series 1836, European Central Bank.
    18. Inferrera, Sergio, 2021. "Globalisation in Europe: Consequences for the business environment and future patterns in light of Covid-19," IWH-CompNet Discussion Papers 2/2021, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    19. Konstantins Benkovskis, 2018. "Misallocation, productivity and fragmentation of production: the case of Latvia," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 49(2), pages 187-206, June.

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    JEL classification:

    • F10 - International Economics - - Trade - - - General
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade

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